How Is It Child Bipolar Different Than Adult Bipolar?
Pediatric Bipolar starts in childhood or infancy, whereas adult Bipolar can have an onset at any age, most commonly early 20s and 30s. Because childhood Bipolar has only recently come to the attention of clinicians and researchers, they are not entirely sure what will happen with a child who has BP… what they will be like as adults. “Classic” symptoms of Bipolar such as running up credit card debt do not apply, since most kids don’t have credit cards. The symptoms express themselves in more age appropriate ways, such as insatiable urges to buy gifts for other people or other impulsive money handling. Also another possible expression of this would be the compulsive collection of every receipt, every paper, every bottle cap, every piece of trash. Some researchers believe that Pediatric Bipolar is a more severe form of illness than adult onset Bipolar.
