Will Baum, LCSW

NYT Magazine: Can Preschoolers Be Depressed?

One established [treatment] method is called Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, or P.C.I.T. Originally developed in the 1970s to treat disruptive disorders — which typically include violent or aggressive behavior in preschoolers — P.C.I.T. is generally a short-term program, usually 10 to 16 weeks under the supervision of a trained therapist, with ongoing follow-up in the home. Luby adapted the program for depression and began using it in 2007 in an ongoing study on a potential treatment. During each weekly hourlong session, parents are taught to encourage their children to acquire emotion regulation, stress management, guilt reparation and other coping skills. The hope is that children will learn to handle depressive symptoms and parents will reinforce those lessons.

What to expect when you were expecting a dozen-plus years ago:  Adolescence and Anger.

Parents can get angry in their frustrating fight for influence, adolescents can get angry in their frustrating fight for freedom. However,the battle is finally lost and won as the new generation defeats the old.

PsychCentral relays a study about the Long-term Benefits from Musical Training.

New research may help parents when they write the monthly check for music lessons…The research strongly suggests that the neural connections made during musical training also prime the brain for other aspects of human communication.

ScienceDaily:  Essential ingredients of supportive sibling relationships.

[A new paper] urges parents to think about the relationship they want their kids to have with each other–now and as adults–and to be intentional in helping them create that positive, supportive bond.

How-to suggestions included in the article.

New York looks at parents who hate parenting in All Joy and No Fun.

From the perspective of the species, it’s perfectly unmysterious why people have children. From the perspective of the individual, however, it’s more of a mystery than one might think…

A longish article at WebMD about kids and chores–the what, when, and why.

“A child has to have some responsibilities. Then by the time they go off to college, you don’t have to have a three-hour lecture on the steps of the dormitory.”

Stand-outs this morning from around the web…

ScienceDaily: Combining sex and drugs reduces rock and roll

NYT:  Your Brain on Exercise

WebMD: Getting Pregnant: Easy Ways To Encourage Fertility

PsychCentral:  Therapist Competency Important for Treatment Success

ScienceDaily: Antidepressants make shrimps see the light

Young children are skilled negotiators, says a Swedish study–suggests letting kids work things out on their own.

The results show that children’s negotiations form part of their play, and that these negotiations have a clear purpose: to agree on both how they can be together in their play and the content of their play.

A ScienceDaily write-up of baby rat study–Abusive mothering aggravates the impact of stress hormones.

“Our work shows that, while the infant brain is wired to form attachments at all costs, abusive attachments have negative consequences in social behavior development.”

Fatherhood is the new motherhood. Happy Father’s Day.

[S]everal studies show that fathers are now struggling just as much — and sometimes even more — than mothers in trying to fulfill their responsibilities at home and in the office. Just last week, Boston College released a study called “The New Dad” suggesting that new fathers face a subtle bias in the workplace, which fails to recognize their stepped-up family responsibilities and presumes that they will be largely unaffected by children.