When you have a bright toddler and a family history of both genius and mental illness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would try my best not to worry and enjoy the years you have now. I had similar worries because of a strong family history of mental illness, including schizophrenia. We put our sensitive, bright child in small, nurturing schools, provided therapy, gave him a caring upbringing, everything suggested. As it turns out, my son has severe mental health issues as a teen. It’s very hard. But I still love him very much and am grateful for the relatively not years of his childhood. You deal with what comes.

*Relatively normal years of his childhood*

There is something a little hurtful TBH about this post, as if families could stave off major depression or schizophrenia or their young adult child’s suicide by choosing a better preschool. You can’t. It’s a little like believing in the refrigerator mother theory of autism. I know that it’s probably more the blinders of being a parent of a baby or toddler, when you still believe that your child’s outcomes are under your control. In time you realize how little control you have, and you come to accept it.

The one piece of advice I was given by a psychiatrist is that if you have a family history of schizophrenia, avoid stimulants such as ADHD medicine.

NP here. I think you misunderstood the PP. they are saying that you CAN’T stave off major mental health issues. They tried many things to be proactive, but in the end, the mental health issues surfaced.
Though I do believe that steps a parent takes that are done with love and patience help the parent child bond, which can only help the child later.

Parental anxiety over whether it is the right school is going cancel that out.

Where do out see anxiety, PP? Didn’t you choose the best preschool for your child based on his/her needs and personally without anxiety? I know we did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:130 and 142 iq are not super high, maybe that’s in his favor?

I think that’s what OP is saying. Neither she nor DH are geniuses.

But knowing that 100 is average and conversely 80 is developmentally disabled, 130 and especially 152 ate high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would try my best not to worry and enjoy the years you have now. I had similar worries because of a strong family history of mental illness, including schizophrenia. We put our sensitive, bright child in small, nurturing schools, provided therapy, gave him a caring upbringing, everything suggested. As it turns out, my son has severe mental health issues as a teen. It’s very hard. But I still love him very much and am grateful for the relatively not years of his childhood. You deal with what comes.

*Relatively normal years of his childhood*

There is something a little hurtful TBH about this post, as if families could stave off major depression or schizophrenia or their young adult child’s suicide by choosing a better preschool. You can’t. It’s a little like believing in the refrigerator mother theory of autism. I know that it’s probably more the blinders of being a parent of a baby or toddler, when you still believe that your child’s outcomes are under your control. In time you realize how little control you have, and you come to accept it.

The one piece of advice I was given by a psychiatrist is that if you have a family history of schizophrenia, avoid stimulants such as ADHD medicine.

NP here. I think you misunderstood the PP. they are saying that you CAN’T stave off major mental health issues. They tried many things to be proactive, but in the end, the mental health issues surfaced.
Though I do believe that steps a parent takes that are done with love and patience help the parent child bond, which can only help the child later.

Parental anxiety over whether it is the right school is going cancel that out.

Where do out see anxiety, PP? Didn’t you choose the best preschool for your child based on his/her needs and personally without anxiety? I know we did.

Yeah, and I didn’t need to consult strangers on the internet to do it!

[Anonymous]

It's a common trope in the media but simply not true that genius and mental illness correlate. So don't worry about that.

It's normal to be worried about this stuff. The best thing you can do is give your kid a vocabulary to talk about their feelings and talk about mental health with them. Something like half of all people have bouts of anxiety or depression so it's best that we teach our kids that it's okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would try my best not to worry and enjoy the years you have now. I had similar worries because of a strong family history of mental illness, including schizophrenia. We put our sensitive, bright child in small, nurturing schools, provided therapy, gave him a caring upbringing, everything suggested. As it turns out, my son has severe mental health issues as a teen. It’s very hard. But I still love him very much and am grateful for the relatively not years of his childhood. You deal with what comes.

*Relatively normal years of his childhood*

There is something a little hurtful TBH about this post, as if families could stave off major depression or schizophrenia or their young adult child’s suicide by choosing a better preschool. You can’t. It’s a little like believing in the refrigerator mother theory of autism. I know that it’s probably more the blinders of being a parent of a baby or toddler, when you still believe that your child’s outcomes are under your control. In time you realize how little control you have, and you come to accept it.

The one piece of advice I was given by a psychiatrist is that if you have a family history of schizophrenia, avoid stimulants such as ADHD medicine.

NP here. I think you misunderstood the PP. they are saying that you CAN’T stave off major mental health issues. They tried many things to be proactive, but in the end, the mental health issues surfaced.
Though I do believe that steps a parent takes that are done with love and patience help the parent child bond, which can only help the child later.

Parental anxiety over whether it is the right school is going cancel that out.

Where do out see anxiety, PP? Didn’t you choose the best preschool for your child based on his/her needs and personally without anxiety? I know we did.

Yeah, and I didn’t need to consult strangers on the internet to do it!

Neither did I. Neither did OP.

[Anonymous]

The brain is very plastic until age 5. You are good parents and very smart to be thinking about this now.

-Family history of severe mental illness with chaotic childhoods

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mental illness is largely gene-dependent, OP. If he develops an actual, diagnosable disorder, it won't be because you enrolled him in the "wrong" preschool.

However mental disorders also exist on a spectrum, and the threshold for a diagnosis is necessarily arbitrary. So it's true that fostering a healthy environment might lead to reduced symptoms if your child is predisposed to certain mental disorders.

By healthy environment, I mean nutrition, sleep and exercise. You need a health body and brain. A varied, colorful diet without too much processed and artificial foods is best. Sleep helps detoxify organs and store memories correctly in the brain. Exercise regulates metabolism and helps growth.

And then there is stress mitigation and a balanced approach to life - which is what you were trying to do with this preschool selection, I suppose. But at his age, it doesn't matter. What matters for stress is enough sleep, enough food and a stable home life where he has the same roof over his head most of the time and a family that doesn't yell or hit each other. I mean, the bar is lower than you think. Stress will come into play when he gets older and needs to balance good grades with extra-curriculars and volunteering.

You also need to consider that *resilience* is a better marker for success, whether it's academic, financial or mental wellbeing. Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from stressors. So you don't want to eliminate stress. You want to model and teach how to behave while anticipating, undergoing and recuperating from stress. This requires a lot of self-awareness from you, the parent.

- geneticist.

If you were really a geneticist, you would know that what you’re saying is BS. Mental illness can be heritable, but it is largely dependent on a whole host of environmental factors. Even bipolar, which us Indian if the most heritable diseases, only has a 15% chance of being passed on if you have a parent with bipolar. Childhood trauma, head injuries, and environmental toxins are much more predictive of mental illness

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a sibling and cousin with mental illness. It's important to understand this stuff often doesn't manifest until your teens or early 20s. My sister's first severe manic episode occurred when she was in college. However, the sooner you get treated, the better off you are. The medications have also gotten better in recent years. I think everyone should chat with their kids about mental health so they know there's help to be had if this happens.

It can surface as young as 6 or 7

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mental illness is largely gene-dependent, OP. If he develops an actual, diagnosable disorder, it won't be because you enrolled him in the "wrong" preschool.

However mental disorders also exist on a spectrum, and the threshold for a diagnosis is necessarily arbitrary. So it's true that fostering a healthy environment might lead to reduced symptoms if your child is predisposed to certain mental disorders.

By healthy environment, I mean nutrition, sleep and exercise. You need a health body and brain. A varied, colorful diet without too much processed and artificial foods is best. Sleep helps detoxify organs and store memories correctly in the brain. Exercise regulates metabolism and helps growth.

And then there is stress mitigation and a balanced approach to life - which is what you were trying to do with this preschool selection, I suppose. But at his age, it doesn't matter. What matters for stress is enough sleep, enough food and a stable home life where he has the same roof over his head most of the time and a family that doesn't yell or hit each other. I mean, the bar is lower than you think. Stress will come into play when he gets older and needs to balance good grades with extra-curriculars and volunteering.

You also need to consider that *resilience* is a better marker for success, whether it's academic, financial or mental wellbeing. Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from stressors. So you don't want to eliminate stress. You want to model and teach how to behave while anticipating, undergoing and recuperating from stress. This requires a lot of self-awareness from you, the parent.

- geneticist.

A family that doesn’t yell? Like the couple who never argues, right? Those never-argue seemingly happy couples who suddenly split when they can’t hold their feelings inside any longer. Who the hell has raised boys without yelling?

e
You can argue without yelling. I never yell. My boys can hear me fine.

Yep, same. No yelling at my house either. Who are these people who are yelling all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, these are your genes. There is nothing you can do to prevent mental illness. You can talk about it and destigmatize treatments so suicide is less likely, though.

As a childfree person with a family history of Personality disorders and schizophrenia, I wonder why you decided to have children? Just seems quite dumb to reproduce knowingly and fret about having a child with mental problems in the future. Not being mean, just saying.

o

Go away child free weirdo, no one on this board cares what you think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mental illness is largely gene-dependent, OP. If he develops an actual, diagnosable disorder, it won't be because you enrolled him in the "wrong" preschool.

However mental disorders also exist on a spectrum, and the threshold for a diagnosis is necessarily arbitrary. So it's true that fostering a healthy environment might lead to reduced symptoms if your child is predisposed to certain mental disorders.

By healthy environment, I mean nutrition, sleep and exercise. You need a health body and brain. A varied, colorful diet without too much processed and artificial foods is best. Sleep helps detoxify organs and store memories correctly in the brain. Exercise regulates metabolism and helps growth.

And then there is stress mitigation and a balanced approach to life - which is what you were trying to do with this preschool selection, I suppose. But at his age, it doesn't matter. What matters for stress is enough sleep, enough food and a stable home life where he has the same roof over his head most of the time and a family that doesn't yell or hit each other. I mean, the bar is lower than you think. Stress will come into play when he gets older and needs to balance good grades with extra-curriculars and volunteering.

You also need to consider that *resilience* is a better marker for success, whether it's academic, financial or mental wellbeing. Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from stressors. So you don't want to eliminate stress. You want to model and teach how to behave while anticipating, undergoing and recuperating from stress. This requires a lot of self-awareness from you, the parent.

- geneticist.

A family that doesn’t yell? Like the couple who never argues, right? Those never-argue seemingly happy couples who suddenly split when they can’t hold their feelings inside any longer. Who the hell has raised boys without yelling?

You sound like my sister, who yells at her family. She can't believe I've never yelled at my young teen boys. The most I've ever done is says their names loudly with a tone which conveys I'm not playing. My dh and I have been married 23 years, together for 31 and we do not fight. We both agree that yelling, hitting, name calling, etc are abusive. We do not abuse each other or our children. Td/lr: abusive people like pp cannot imagine that a peaceful life is possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, these are your genes. There is nothing you can do to prevent mental illness. You can talk about it and destigmatize treatments so suicide is less likely, though.

As a childfree person with a family history of Personality disorders and schizophrenia, I wonder why you decided to have children? Just seems quite dumb to reproduce knowingly and fret about having a child with mental problems in the future. Not being mean, just saying.

Right. They should build a time machine and go back in time to 3 years ago to warn themselves against getting pregnant.

[jsmith123]

I have a high IQ and a family history of drug abuse, depression and anxiety. My husband is smart, but his family is the most normal family I've ever met.

I think both my kids got my genes though as I can already see some tendencies in them towards OCD and anxiety.

It helps to be aware of it but I'm also being cautious about trying to pathologize what might just be a normal developmental phase.

It's nice that you're doing your best to set your child up with a healthy environment, but be wary of falling into the trap that you can control the outcome. That would be putting unnecessary stress on yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, these are your genes. There is nothing you can do to prevent mental illness. You can talk about it and destigmatize treatments so suicide is less likely, though.

As a childfree person with a family history of Personality disorders and schizophrenia, I wonder why you decided to have children? Just seems quite dumb to reproduce knowingly and fret about having a child with mental problems in the future. Not being mean, just saying.

Right. They should build a time machine and go back in time to 3 years ago to warn themselves against getting pregnant.

NP. In my case, both children (and DILs) were lied to by MIL and the other adults in the family purposefully lied about the history of mental illness in their family because it is so severe that the vast majority of sane people would decline to date-marry-reproduce with them to create children related to both parents biologically. Other DIL went ahead without testing and has significant issues with both her children.

You don't always know beforehand because people lie and generic testing doesn't necessarily cover this. I know other people who have chosen to not have biokids because of heritable disorders. It's a valid ethics question based on quality of life.

A PP is also incorrect -% of the risk is heritable. That is not the same as having the remainder % be the risk of having it. There are other charts that will break down risk factors (like season of birth) and distance from the schizophrenic or bipolar relative that give a more accurate risk of the child having it.

Beforehand, I'd get the spouse tested specifically for the variants known to be associated with these diseases because some have outsize impact and that weighs into my decision. If you already have the child then you still follow some of the recommended protocols (like VitD supplementation) and just do your best to avoid environmental triggers (head trauma, etc).

I think the peds recommendation is correct. I was much happier after l I placed into a gifted program. People forget that gifted children are special needs too. My original school didn't have anything at all so my program was through a local university. They didn't start accepting students until second grade, though.