This controversy is made even worse because there are no definitive tests for diagnosing psychiatric illnesses. As a result, it can take months or even years to untangle a child’s symptoms.

In Susan’s case, her symptoms included obsessive counting, phobias and extreme anxiety. Though she exhibited these symptoms as early as first grade, it was not until after she finished seventh grade that she was diagnosed with OCD. This diagnosis took into account her symptoms, the fact her family history includes OCD, and a psychiatric evaluation.

For Susan, this diagnosis brought with it some relief, as it helped explain many of her behaviors and answer some of her questions including, “Why am I abnormal?” This diagnosis also offered Susan hope from the treatment and medication that was prescribed.

Unfortunately, the first three medications prescribed to Susan failed to alleviate her symptoms and produced severe side effects, including nausea and dizziness. This led doctors to prescribe a fourth medication to Susan—Prozac—which seems to be helping her. “Prozac clears my head,” Susan said. “Now, I can control my actions. I also get better grades because I’m not counting the ceiling tiles anymore.”

As Susan’s case demonstrates, correctly medicating kids with mental health illnesses is complicated. Often, it involves trying several drugs to see which reduces the illness’ symptoms the most while causing the least amount of side effects. Because prescription drugs can take weeks to begin working, this also can be a lengthy ordeal.

What’s the Treatment?

Though prescription medications certainly can help students, prescribing them is controversial. “When we’re dealing with developing brains and minds, medications have a whole different impact than they do in adults; and we don’t understand that impact very well,” said Dr. Marianne Wambolot, Chief of Psychiatry at Denver Children’s Hospital, in her interview with “Frontline.”

More long-term studies are needed to understand better how these medications affect children’s brains. “Too high a percentage of the time we don’t know what we’re doing. We need to study it in kids and get the dosing right and know whether it works in them,” said Dr. Dianne Murphy of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in her interview with “Frontline.”

What little research has been done has shown that many drugs that work in adults do not work well, or at all, in kids; and you cannot apply adult data to medications in kids.

Despite this controversy, Susan believes, “If it’s helpful, don’t take kids off their medications. Don’t stop healing kids. Monitor them. If you prescribe meds, you should also prescribe therapies”—advice Susan has taken to heart herself.

Susan has undergone four months of intensive group therapy, as well as family counseling and one-on-one therapy. This therapy has taught Susan how to manage her stress, anger and anxiety, as well as how to do exposures, activities intentionally designed to trigger her OCD in order to reshape her thinking.