My son Max is a happy kid….sometimes.

He is an angry kid….sometimes.

He can also be a depressed kid…sometimes.

And he will probably be all of these and others within 20 minutes.

How can this be?

“Childhood-Onset Bipolar Disorder is described as abnormally intense mood swings that alternate from periods of severe highs (mania) to severe lows (depression). Children experience rapid mood swings that can cycle many times within a day.”

This can be very rough on a child who doesn’t understand why these changes keep happening. If you ask Max why he does what he does he will say “I don’t know” very sadly. He doesn’t always have control over these mood swings.

The problem comes in when these happen around other people. Parents witness what is going on and become afraid to have him around their kids. They imagine that he will hurt them when he is going through an anger phase. Play dates can then be few and far between. And Max doesn’t understand why he isn’t seeing his friends very much.

But I’m not convinced that with Max it is all just uncontrollable rapid cycling of emotions. I am with him a lot so I get to observe what he is doing. It appears to me that in some cases he doesn’t like feeling an emotion for a long period of time.

He can be happy and doing something he really enjoys. But then the happiness goes on too long so he does something inappropriate. He angrily battles the resulting timeout but finally takes it. Later he is unhappy and contrite; apologizing profusely for what he has done wrong.

Once this is cleared up he is happy again and ready to play.

Our parenting counselor recently commented that bipolar kids have to learn to live with the adrenaline in their bodies. They aren’t used to being calm and happy for long periods of time.

She suggested that the adrenaline rush they get as their emotions quickly change is similar to waiting until the last day before getting a term paper done or completing and postmarking tax returns minutes before the deadline.

This I can understand. I don’t recall ever starting a paper until very late. I am then very tense and anxious until I have completed it. And you know what? I never start my tax returns until the last couple of days. Don’t get me wrong I’ve thought about both months before they were due and have had some kind of a plan swirling around my head. But I can never put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard until very late.

This is Max’s normal behavior but he can also have one bad week a month. This is where nothing seems to go right for him. The simplest thing can set him off. No one and nothing is right and he is angry with the world. The following week he tends to be very sweet with very little trouble.

With a child like this if parents can understand what bipolar disorder is all about they can learn how to treat it properly. Parenting support groups are available. Encouraging your child to talk to outsiders such as mentors can help immensely.

As I write this Max is out playing with his mentor. She comes for two hours each week and he looks forward to her visits even when he is in a bad mood.

I can never say it enough:  Don’t do it alone.

It takes more than one person to get through bipolar and the chaos that can result.