Child and adolescent psychopharmacology is a leading edge of pediatric psychiatry and is rapidly developing. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has become the psychiatric model or prototype disorder for the medication treatment of children. Psychostimulants remain the treatment of choice for ADHD, partially because of their solid effectiveness in treating the behavioral symptoms and especially because of their unmatched effectiveness in ameliorating the cognitive symptoms. In the 1990s, child and adolescent psychopharmacologic treatment entered everyday psychiatric practice. Its speedy expansion led drug treatment, alongside and integrated with psychosocial interventions, to become the prevailing approach in child psychiatry by mid 1990s. The preoccupation of child psychiatry with psychoanalysis has given way to a more eclectic and empirical clinical methodology. Therapeutic empiricism has become the watchword by which clinicians decide when to treat and when to delay the use of medication and psychosocial treatments.