Advanced Parenting: Advice for Helping Kids through Diagnoses, Differences, and Mental Health Challenges

In this helpful guide, pediatrician Fradin (Parenting in a Pandemic) serves up advice for parents of children who face such health challenges as organ transplants, severe allergies, sensory disorders, or mental illness. She focuses on how to stay resilient through hard times and what parents should know about the medical system, explaining how pediatricians allot their time (10-minute appointments for sick children vs. 25 minutes for the healthy, who are usually seeking annual physicals that require comprehensive health assessments) and how insurance reimbursements affect their priorities (emails, school forms, and prescription refills are usually low priority because they are unpaid). To educate oneself about a child’s condition, Fradin recommends readers start by consulting their doctors, after which they might seek out information from an advocacy organization or read up on the publications of a “scientific or educational leader in the field of interest.” The author also offers suggestions on coping with the emotional consequences of a diagnosis, encouraging parents to fight burnout by keeping a fulfilling social life and to make sure one’s child feels comfortable opening up about bullying related to their medical condition. The advice manages the difficult feat of providing specific guidance while applying broadly to the myriad conditions a child might face. Thoughtful and practical, this delivers. (Apr.)