Mental Health & Childhood Depression

May 1

“National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day shines a national spotlight on the importance of caring for every child’s mental health and reinforces that positive mental health is essential to a child’s healthy development.”

samhsa.gov

The purpose of Awareness Day is to increase public awareness about the needs of children with serious mental illness (SMI) and severe emotional disturbance (SED) and their families, provide information on evidence-based practices, and encourage those who need help to seek treatment.
- SAMHSA.gov

Children’s mental health development allows them to live and function well with others, in their community, in school, and with their families. When children experience disruption to their positive state and feel worried, scared, upset, or distressed, it can change the way they interact or conduct themselves as well as how they learn. If a child is experiencing these feelings continually or with severity, usually this leads to a diagnosis related to mental health. Typical and most commonly seen issues are things like ADHD and different types of behavior disorders.

The National Research Council and Institute of Medicine published research titled ”Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People: Progress and Possibilities.” It found that most mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders begin in childhood and youth.

Each year they estimate that between 14-20% of children have a type of mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder. It is important to recognize this while taking into account that the best practice for treatment is early intervention. These kinds of disorders end up interfering with the success of the individual in many different ways, including manifesting as addiction, violence, aggression, or perhaps antisocial tendencies. The repercussions of the absence of assistance with mental health disorders affect not just the individual, but those they interact with in all cases, including friends and family.

Mental health has no limits on age, race or ethnicity, gender, background, etc., and can affect any child. Usually, when conditions related to mental health are not addressed, the problems continue on through adulthood and can have an effect on all aspects of an individual’s life, as mental health conditions are typically chronic conditions.

In early childhood, mental health issues will manifest in different ways as different symptoms. As a child interacts with others, symptoms may appear as they speak, learn, play, or how they handle their emotional responses. Some symptoms of mental health issues are not very apparent and can be difficult to recognize in children.

The most common mental health issues for children are things like anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), or PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Anxiety might manifest itself in fits related to separation anxiety, or being away from Mom or Dad. Your child might be extremely afraid of something specific, like dogs or cats, particularly frightened to go to school, expressing their fears about future events, or experiencing panic attacks. It can be difficult at times to understand simply because that anxiety or fear can present itself through anger or frustration. Encourage kids to communicate about the things that make them worry and feel comfortable expressing how they feel.

What Families Can Do

Treatment is best organized as a holistic effort, involving parents and family, teachers, therapists, and healthcare professionals. These efforts can make a tremendous impact on a child’s life and development and can be treated and managed. As parents are the main source of guidance for their kids, making sure kids know they can and are encouraged to talk about how they feel and what is on their minds is a great place to start. If parents have concerns about behavior, they can speak with healthcare professionals and therapists to determine if intervention could help in their particular case. Moms and Dads certainly know their children best and are intuitive about what their child needs. Parents can be especially aware of their child’s behavior if a traumatic life event has occurred or if a major change to their child’s life has occurred. Social problems can also lead to behavioral problems, such as in cases of school or peer bullying leading to kids lashing out or becoming withdrawn.

Stay Healthy

Mental health is an important part of our overall health. It is important to recognize that other forms of maintaining health are part of the big picture. Making sure kids are getting enough exercise and physical activity along with enough sleep, proper nutrition, and support through their relationships with others has an impact on mental health. Keeping kids active and engaged helps support their development and can have a great effect on mental health.

Engage Therapeutic Intervention

In some cases, the behavioral issue can stem from other sources, such as a lack of development in one area or another. For instance, children unable to develop language skills quickly might become frustrated and become defiant or start to display behavioral issues. In this case, healthcare professionals would likely recommend speech therapy to potentially help them develop their communication skills. Learning happens on many different levels and paces, and getting the extra support to help dispel negative behaviors and frustrations can give kids a healthier frame of mind.