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Bipolar Symptoms in Kids: Warning Signs of Child Bipolar II Disorder
Bipolar disorder in children looks a little different than it does in adults. What are the symptoms and how do you know?
Catherine Zeta-Jones checked in for treatment of bipolar II disorder, a disease she may have suffered from since childhood. How do you recognize bipolar disorder in children? Terri Cheney, author of The Dark Side of Innocence, a book on the subject explains.
First, it’s important to understand that even young children can experience episodes of bipolar disorder — what used to be known as manic-depression. More and more are being diagnosed and treated at younger ages — a good thing. Therapy can help entire families figure out how to support a bipolar child and steer away from or minimize situations that have triggered episodes of mood swings in the past.
So how do you even know if your child potentially suffers from depression or, more seriously, bipolar disorder?
Before we get to bipolar symptoms in children, parents might first want to identify whether their child suffers from depression. Symptoms of depression in children are similar to those of adults, according to Cheney:
- Lethargy
- Lack of energy
- Feelings of extreme sadness and hopelessness
Symptoms of mania differ, however. The “classic high-flying mania” that shows up in adults may appear more subdued in kids. In children with bipolar or bipolar II disorder, these are some of the warning signs, Cheney writes in a recent essay for Babble:
[C]hildren seem to experience more irritability. They may speak more quickly than usual, their thoughts may seem to race by, and their schemes may be unusually grandiose.
What’s key, however, is a pattern of instability. Does your child repeatedly have ups and downs, accompanied by swings not just in his mood but in his appetite and sleep habits? At first, this might be a little hard to spot, because unlike adults with bipolar disorder, children are more likely to have “rapid cycling,” where they veer from mood to mood very quickly, even in the course of a single day.
Cheney suggests parents who are worried about their children’s mood swings keep a chart to track mood cycling. Or, download an app for mood-tracking that does the same thing.
Above all, Cheney says parents shouldn’t run from this. As a child, she suffered from bipolar disorder but her parents didn’t see the signs or want to see the signs. Parents show know that bipolar disorder can be awful for its adult sufferers and even worse for kids — “intense mood swings, wild and reckless behavior, emotional anguish and suicidality.”
There’s help for everyone — you just have to ask for it, like Catherine Zeta-Jones did.
Photo: Babble
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4 Comments
Chris commented on Apr 14 11 at 2:25 pmI would question whether the increasingly common diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and the resulting increase of prescribing drugs to treat it is clearly “a good thing.” I think it’s probably good in some cases and bad in others. Personally, I am leery about giving powerful psychoactive drugs to children with developing brains (many drugs are not approved for kids). Further, the diagnostic criteria used to identify bipolar disorder were worked out in adults, not children. While the symptoms that are being diagnosed as bipolar disorder in kids can clearly have negative consequences, more research would need to be conducted on children before I would feel comfortable with the diagnosis. (For example, some psychologists suggest it can be diagnosed in preschoolers, while others disagree.)
shannon commented on Apr 15 11 at 6:04 amChris are you bipolar? Do you have a child who is potentially bipolar? Unless you deal with it in some capacity on a day to day basis I don’t think you truly have any idea of what is possible for a child to have. Also read the article, it was not pushing drugs for kids, it specifically states that therapy would help not only the child who is bipolar but the whole family. Also there isn’t a common dx of bipolar…just the opposite, try taking in your child who you know without a doubt is bipolar and then tell me how easy it was to get them dx. My child has seen a therapist and shrinks and has been on mess ( which she currently is no longer on) for 3 years, even tho both her father and I are bipolar they are still wanting to not dx her much to the detriment of getting something done for her. Daily life as a child who is bipolar is extremely hard. People are just now accepting that children could/can be bipolar, before it was just tossed aside that they were misbehavior, acting out, etc…. think about how many kids were punished growing up or given up bc parents didn’t know what to do with them and how they were acting. Bipolar in children is way under dx in children, we’re just hearing more about it bc its being recognized finally as something that is real.
Alicia commented on Apr 15 11 at 3:36 pmMy daugher is just 3 years old and has shown signs of mood instability as early as 9 months. I am at my wits end trying to find some help. She is very destructive and volatile during her episodes and the sweetest child imaginable when she is not. My family has an extensive history of schizoprenia, bi-polar disorder, depression and other mental health issues. I was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder at 13 and this is a whole lot to deal with. Someone please help!!
Carrie commented on May 09 11 at 11:18 pmhello, i am a single mother of a 8 year old son who was diagnosed with bi polar when he was just 6 years old. I thought that his mis behaving was due to the divorce of his father and i. But when our doctor placed him into a hospital for 1 month for his unexplaned manic issues i relized it was more then just depression. With therapy and Meds, my son is living a normal life…and learning how to cope. I never knew about what bipolar was and that children this young could be effected. thanks to articles like this for educating us!
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