PART ONE
Living With Love, Chaos and Haley
"The first time we took Haley to the hospital, I guess I expected that they would put it all back together. But it's never all back together," said Christine Abaspour, Haley's mother.

When Haley Abaspour started seeing things that were not there - bugs and mice crawling on her parents' bed, imaginary friends sitting next to her on the couch, dead people at a church that housed her preschool - her parents were unsure what to think. After all, she was a little girl. Read more


PART TWO
What's Wrong With a Child? Psychiatrists Often Disagree
"Sometimes they help, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they make me feel like another person, like not normal," said Paul Williams, who at age 13 has taken a wide variety of psychiatric drugs.

Paul Williams, 13, has had almost as many psychiatric diagnoses as birthdays. Read more


PART THREE
Proof Is Scant on Psychiatric Drug Mix for Young
"We always debate meds," said Billy Igafo-Te'o. Mr. Igafo-Te'O is the father of Michael Igafo-Te'O, 12, who takes four drugs and has damaged their home so often that they no longer repair it.

Their rooms are a mess, their trophies line the walls, and both have profiles on MySpace.com. Stephen and Jacob Meszaros seem like typical teenagers until their mother offers a glimpse into the family's medicine cabinet. Read more


PART FOUR
Off to College Alone, Shadowed by Mental Illness
"We can set up all the protective measures we want and still there is just no way to tell what is going to happen, and man, that’s hard." JEAN LYNCH-THOMASON At 17, she wanted some distance from her parents.

Her mother called it a negotiable proposition. But to Jean Lynch-Thomason, a 17-year-old with bipolar disorder who started college this fall, her mom's notion to fly from their home in Nashville to her campus in Olympia, Wash., every few weeks to monitor Jean's illness felt needlessly intrusive. Read more


PART FIVE
Parenting as Therapy for Child's Mental Disorders
"I don’t want him to look back and think the successes he’s had are all due to a drug," said Dawn Van De Wal, a mother of a child with attention deficit diagnosis.

In school he was as floppy and good-natured as a puppy, a boy who bear-hugged his friends, who was always in motion, who could fall off his chair repeatedly, as if he had no idea how to use one. Read more