Support for Parents and Caregivers of Children with Mental Health Challenges
If you think your child is showing signs of mental health disorder, if you have received a diagnosis, or if you have concerns about your child’s behaviors, the Maryland Coalition of Families can help.
Our staff have personal expertise as parents, grandparents, and caregivers of children who have mental health challenges and they use their knowledge to support other families.
You are not alone.
Our staff can:
- Provide emotional support to talk about the challenges of parenting children with mental health challenges.
- Connect you to the services and supports available in your community.
- Navigate the complex systems you and your family might be involved with including educational, legal, health care or child welfare.
- Help you learn how to advocate for your child’s needs at every stage of development.
- Connect you with other families who know what you’re going through.
- Provide hope and guidance for the future.
All our services are confidential and free to families regardless of income or insurance.
To submit a request for services, click on the Request Services Now button at the top right of this page. If you have questions or would like further information, please email us at [email protected] or call 410-730-8267.
Resources for More Information
Being mentally healthy during childhood means reaching developmental and emotional milestones within specific time frames, learning healthy social behaviors, and having coping skills and resilience to deal with conflicts and problems. Some children have challenges with some or all of these areas, either periodically or consistently throughout childhood. For parents and caregivers, this can be very confusing and scary.
Mental health disorders that affect children include:
Persistent fears, worries or anxiety that disrupt their ability to participate in play, school or typical age-appropriate social situations.
Compared with most children of the same age, children with ADHD have difficulty with attention, impulsive behaviors, hyperactivity or some combination of these concerns.
This is a neurological condition that appears in early childhood — usually before age 3. Although the severity of ASD varies, a child with this disorder has difficulty communicating and interacting with others.
Eating disorders are defined as a preoccupation with an ideal body type, disordered thinking about weight and weight loss, and unsafe eating and dieting habits. Eating disorders can result in emotional and social dysfunction and physical complications.
Persistent feelings of sadness and loss of interest that disrupt a child's ability to function in school and interact with others. Bipolar disorder results in extreme mood swings between depression and extreme emotional or behavioral highs that may be unguarded, risky or unsafe.
Prolonged emotional distress, anxiety, distressing memories, nightmares and disruptive behaviors in response to violence, abuse, injury or other traumatic events.
A disorder in perceptions and thoughts that cause a person to lose touch with reality (psychosis). Most often appearing in the late teens through the 20s, schizophrenia results in hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking and behaviors.