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medication | |
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caring for every child's mental health | |
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resource links |
Children of all ages, even as young infants, can experience mental health problems.
One in five children and adolescents may have a mental health problem at any given time. One in ten children and teenagers may have a mental health problem at any given time.
Almost two-thirds of all young people with mental health problems are not getting the help they need. Without help, these problems can lead to school failure, substance use and family trouble. Exposure to violence, death, abuse or neglect may lead to mental health problems in children.
A child's age, stage of development and ability to communicate can make it difficult to distinguish between a mental health problem and natural development.
Some of these illnesses, such as anxiety disorders, eating disorders, mood disorders and schizophrenia, can occur in adults as well as children. Others, such as behavior and development disorders, elimination disorders, and learning and communication disorders, begin in childhood only, although they can continue into adulthood.
What
are the symptoms of mental illness
in children and/or adolescents?
Symptoms vary depending
on the type of mental
illness, but some of the general symptoms
include:
Maintains
patterns of repetitive activity, and these
actions
interfere with school attendance, sleep or appetite
Frequently
worries about death
Has
trouble making friends because of
aggressive or frightening behavior
Can’t
stay with one activity as long as other children
Doesn’t
seem to listen to instructions
Displays
babyish behavior which should have been
outgrown long
ago, like clinging, wetting or soiling
"We must hasten the day when no child or adolescent need be too hard to handle, too sad to survive, too strange and angry to live among us, too ill to laugh, play and love."
National Advisory Mental Health Council, 1999
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