Shannon Gold

It seems like many of the 1-star reviews from people missed the disclaimer at the beginning of her book, which states that YES there are many children and youth that require psychological and medicinal interventions. That’s not who this book is about. As someone who works in youth mental health, I see the spectrum of families with children who absolutely require interventions and benefit from it AND parents who expect others to raise/fix/parent/discipline their children, which causes more harm than good. Over-therapizing children and youth can lead to an internalized “sick” identity which leaves them feeling helpless and defeated, requiring more support throughout the lifetime. From my perspective, this book seeks to empower parents to raise their children. Sometimes no-treatment IS the best treatment and, as a culture, we need to move away from pathologizing normal developmental behaviour. Do I think that her interpretations of some studies are a bit flawed? Yes. Hence, 4-stars.