Tweetorial. Children and psychiatric medications. We are often in the circumstance of interviewing people who took psychiatric medication as a child. The way people remember these experiences can be very powerful. Although obviously the forces of memory /1

Can distort what actually happened and it gets very complicated I tried in my day program job to create a group for children where they could ask me generic medication and psychiatry questions. I got no support for this so it fell by the wayside 2/

But it gave me a lot of information. I learned that children generally like being involved in the conversation about medication and give important feedback. Because they may be too young to fully grasp the science is not a good reason to try to help them 3/

To feel as involved as possible. They asked questions like “what is my medication for?” “Do I need to take this forever” just like many adults. Some of them really became excellent reporters of their medication side effects and benefits. 4/

Please try to take the time to engage children in questions about medications. Its often the case that people take disempowerment or confusion or negativity about medications with them into adulthood and although we can’t entirely prevent it its worth a shot. 5/