How to Talk to Children about their Mentally Ill, Schizophrenic Parent

My wife and I have been broadcast documentary filmmakers/producers for more than thirty years. Our daughter is an adult schizophrenic with two teenage children. When our grandchildren were in grade school they were forced to care for themselves as well as being caregivers of their schizophrenic mom.  Our grandchildren and daughter are our motivation for proposing this project: “How to Talk to Children with a Mentally Ill Schizophrenic Parent” – a cutting edge, comprehensive four-part documentary series designed to be shown to caregivers who support these children. We are the best producers for the proposed series on schizophrenia as we have lived this experience. We were the ones to inform our grandchildren of their mother’s mental illness.  How does one know what to say to two young children about their mom’s sickness?  We did extensive research and discovered very little written or visual material existed on educating young children about schizophrenia.  What we did find was authored by adolescents and adult children of a schizophrenic parent, with a recurring theme – exasperation at not being able to find answers or help dealing with their mentally ill parent.