Mara Wilson offers Lindsay Lohan advice in '7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy'

With Lindsay Lohan in rehab for the sixth time and Amanda Bynes, well, acting like a very bizarre Amanda Bynes, their behavior raises many questions, probably chief among them:  How does this happen? Why do so many child stars seem to go off the deep end as they grow up?

Former child star Mara Wilson — best known for her roles as Robin William's adorable daughter in "Mrs. Doubtfire" and as a precocious, pint-size girl with magical powers in "Matilda" -- sheds some light on the issue in an article she wrote for Cracked.com, titled, "7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy (An Insider's Perspective)."

Wilson, 25, is certainly an insider, and as a former child star who seems to have avoided going "crazy," her explanations are meaningful and eye-opening. She is retired from acting, living in New York and has a drama degree from New York University — a school which, she writes in her May 28 article, "has been called 'Where Child Stars Come to Die."

The article offers more of an explanation of the doomed child star and how she comes to be than it is an advice column, but Wilson does offer Lindsay Lohan one notable suggestion:

"If I were to talk to Lindsay Lohan, I'd encourage her to get the hell out of acting and into something soothing. Take up botany or something.

"But she wouldn't be likely to listen to me — and not only because I'm younger and way less hot than her. It's because she's been acting all her life, she has little education, and in her mind, there's nothing else she could do. She's likely to keep doing it even if she's making herself — and maybe also the people she works with — miserable."

These days, Wilson "writes stuff," on her blog aptly named, "Mara Wilson Writes Stuff." She  is also very active on Twitter (and worth following, but in the exact opposite way Amanda Bynes is: You'll laugh with her, not at her).

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Her piece is honest and insightful, but also pretty funny. Maybe most central to her success — in life more so than in Hollywood — is that Wilson doesn't take herself, or her former profession (which she says was more of a hobby than a job) too seriously.

Read Mara Wilson's article in full on Cracked.com and tell us — Do you think she offers a reasonable explanation for why "child stars go crazy"?