Family Road Map Guide

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Guiding Star Point Four:
Manage INFORMATION
Tracking Your Child’s Progress
Be Good to Yourself
Sometimes parents of
children with behavioral
health problems can get very
worn out and overwhelmed.
A different system can help.
Talking to other parents
in the same situation can
help. The important thing
to remember is that you are
not a failure because things
aren’t working out. See
Guiding Star Point 5:
Find SUPPORT for more
on how to cope.
4.1: Medical/Behavioral Treatment. As a parent, you serve as the eyes and
ears of the treatment team. For a “medication management” visit, your child may
spend as little as 15 minutes once every few weeks with a psychiatrist or nurse.
A physical therapy session may be less than an hour once per week.
These providers have a lot of knowledge about why children behave the way
they do and how certain behaviors can change, but you are the one who can tell
what your child is doing most of the time. You are the best one to gather this information
from other caregivers, such as your child’s teacher, other relatives, youthgroup
leader, or childcare staff. Your jobs as the parent observer on this team are
to:
1. Give medications in a safe, organized way.
2. Observe how the treatment affects your child’s behavior in everyday life.
3. Watch for any danger signs and take prompt action to get help.
4. Report facts clearly to the treatment team.
For a busy parent with a difficult child, all of these tasks can seem impossible.
What if you make a mistake with medication? How do you know what side effects to
look for? Who has time to write down all the details of a child’s behavior when every
day is a new struggle? What if you just aren’t a very organized person?
The good news: You don’t have to be neat, organized, or any kind of expert
to do the tasks listed above. The best tips and tools for doing this job come from
parents who don’t have time and patience for a lot of paperwork.
The most important tool or a busy parent to have is a regular routine that
FITS YOUR PERSONAL STYLE. Everybody functions better when a few things
are done the same way every day. We are more likely to stick with routines that are
so simple we don’t even need to remind ourselves to do them after a while. You
probably have some of these routines in your life already. Maybe you can do certain
things when you get up in the morning, right after a meal, or just before bed.
How to Be a Good Recorder
The key is to link this parent record-keeping routine with other natural routines
in your life. That way, when the unexpected happens, you are more likely to
go back to these tasks.
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