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Step 1
Determine the level of the child's potential understanding, for her age. Is the child a very concrete thinker, or is he old enough to understand the workings of the unseen brain? Does the child need to understand himself or someone else?
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Step 2
Talk to the child and get her observations. What does she see in the bipolar friend, parent or sibling? If the child is himself the bipolar, how does he feel? How does he view it? Look for words or ideas that the child brings up, and try to use these.
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Step 3
Use picture ideas to help the child understand. Use physical illness, at whatever stage the child can comprehend, to make an analogy with what's inside the skull that can also be sick. Use weather, roller-coasters, sickness, or any other picture that comes to mind. Try to make a concrete image that the child can understand.
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Step 4
Find books that may help the child by explaining the disorder at a child's level. Some books are available at the page listed below in Resources.
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Step 5
Help the child understand that the way bipolar disorder makes someone talk and act doesn't change whether the person loves you or not. If the child himself is bipolar, help him know that he still loves his family even when he's mean to them.
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Step 6
Emphasize the role that medicine can play in stabilizing a bipolar brain. Be realistic, but hopeful. We can't cure bipolar disorder, but we can treat it usually with pretty good success. A child needs to understand that bipolar disorder is not a death sentence, and that life with the disorder, or with someone who has it, can still be good.
