The Medicated Child

Four-year olds fidget, have short attention spans, act anxious and throw temper tantrums--behavior that hardly sounds like justification for antipsychotic medication. Yet physicians diagnose one million children--some as young as four years old--with bipolar every year. Diagnoses of mental illness in children have risen sharply in the last decade, raising questions about the efficacy and safety of treating children with medications meant for adults. Producers at Frontline explore those very questions in The Medicated Child--which airs on WVIZ/PBS Tuesday night at ten. Join us Tuesday morning at nine on the Sound of Ideas, when we'll talk with one of the producers and members of the local mental health community about the stakes of treating children who are mentally ill.