“My Dad Got Depression, or Something”: How Do Children Talk about Parental Mental Disorder?

The research about children affected by parents with mental disorders has suggested that information and an understanding of the parent's problems are important factors in the child's resilience. Therefore, increasing the child's understanding has been defined as a key element in many preventive interventions. However, there is little research about children's conceptions of parental mental disorder. The article examines the discourses (vocabularies) that children use as their resources when talking about a parent's mental disorder during a qualitative research interview. It pays special attention to the interviewer-child interaction. The data come from interviews with ten Finnish children. The results show that the children employ three vocabularies in the interview: the professional, the empirical, and the vocabulary of concern. The results illustrate the importance of looking at the nuances of adult-child interaction. They also question the self-evident use of a medical discourse in giving information about the parental problems.