There is still ongoing research to help doctors and parents recognize when their child may begin showing signs of psychological disturbances and not simply behavioral problems.
Most of the medications for bipolar disorder are designed to treat adults not children.
At present there is still ongoing tests to try and distinguish bipolar disorder from behavioral disorders in young children.
There have been some disputes about how well this medication works for children because it is normally prescribed for adults. A study was done on 150 patients (ages 10 to 17) who were diagnosed with type 1 bipolar disorder were randomly assigned to 28 days of treatment with extended-release divalproex or a placebo. At the end of the study, the drug proved to be no better than the placebo at improving symptoms. Only 16% of patients taking the drug had remission of their symptoms compared with 19% who took the placebo (Wagner, 2009).
There is still research being done on properly diagnosing this disorder and hopefully some day doctors and parents will have an answer on how to distinguish bipolar disorder from other behavioral problems.