Apprehensive about your kids’s mental health? For Children’s Mental Health Week, Child psychotherapist Dr Alison McClymont reveals the important thing signs to look out for

Research published this 12 months by Wysa revealed that one in three 13 to 17 12 months olds in the UK showed symptoms of depression or anxiety that warranted an investigation – that’s a staggering 34 per cent of youngsters suffering with their mental health.

Mental health issues are also prevalent in younger kids. One in six children aged five to 16 were identified as suffering a possible mental health disorder in 2020.

Childhood is a rollercoaster and it is totally normal to struggle with developing brains and bodies and to sometimes show behaviours or responses that aren’t desirable.

In spite of everything, children are learning day-after-day easy methods to deal with different hormone surges and brain development

One in six children aged five to 16 were identified as suffering a possible mental health disorder in 2020

Normally, obvious examples of mental health triggers are abuse, neglect or maltreatment in the house. Others may be bullying, bereavement or divorce.

But most recently, the pandemic has created huge amounts of tension and stress across the population and in some children this has been experienced as fear of germs or dying and has even develop into full blow OCD for some.

In case your child is showing maladaptive responses to an event comparable to obsessive behaviours or extreme emotional outbursts, it could be price considering that they need some help.

What key signs should parents and teachers be looking for?

Key signs of youngsters’s mental health, are changes in behaviour which can be marked and noticeable.

What we mean by this can be a change that’s either developmentally inappropriate or unusual in your particular child.

Examples of a change in behaviour might be sudden physical outbursts or verbal aggression, or becoming more tearful than normal, with seemingly little provocation.

It is also a change that causes significant distress to the kid – comparable to verbalising a variety of fears or anxious thoughts.

Experiencing night terrors or feeling scared to fall asleep may suggest an underlying anxiety

Look out also for changes in eating or sleeping patterns, also a brand new onset of bathroom trouble, withdrawing from things they once enjoyed, recent onset irritability or emotional outbursts, or just saying ‘I don’t feel good’.

Experiencing night terrors or feeling scared to fall asleep may suggest an underlying anxiety, as can significant changes in eating patterns – comparable to refusing to eat or bingeing.

Changes in toilet behaviours might be ‘deliberate’ soiling of underwear, refusing to make use of the bathroom, or sudden onset of bed wetting.

In fact these should soak up to account the age of the kid, with the understanding it shouldn’t be unusual for 4 to 5 12 months olds to regress slightly with previously good toilet habits, but it surely could be unusual for an eight to nine 12 months old.

The important thing point is: what was previously normal in your child? Has something modified?

How can parents & teachers help children?

Children sometimes lack the emotional vocabulary to elucidate what they feel, so it could actually even be helpful to supply them examples of emotions they could feel, or to assist them define the difference between emotions comparable to anger or sadness.

Parents and teachers can try to take care of an open dialogue with children about each positive and negative emotions and remind them that the experience of BOTH is normal. They need to understand that it’s absolutely OK to say I feel indignant, sad or embarrassed about something.

Children sometimes lack the emotional vocabulary to elucidate what they feel

Normalising these emotions may also help to open up conversations. It is vital that we don’t ‘reject’ emotions comparable to sadness or anger as ‘bad’ – these are normal responses but we now have to search out ways to specific them without being self-destructive.

For instance it is useful to remind children ‘anger is allowed, but aggression shouldn’t be’, or ‘being sad may also help us to feel empathy towards others and is usually a useful connecting emotion’.

What form of questions should we be asking children if we suspect they might be struggling?

Questions we will ask ought to be curious fairly than demanding, for instance versus saying ‘tell me what’s occurring’, you may state what you’ve observed ‘I’ve noticed you’re doing XYZ roughly.’

We may lead with our own emotions or thoughts as a solution to open conversations:

• ‘In the mean time I’m feeling XYZ about this, how about you?’
• ‘Sometimes I actually have felt like XYZ and I did XYZ’
• ‘I’m feeling like XYZ what do you think that?’

When to hunt skilled help?

In case your child is experiencing a marked change in behaviour, and particularly if this behaviour is dangerous to themselves or others – seek the advice of knowledgeable.

Such behaviours that at all times warrant knowledgeable opinion could be:

• inappropriate sexualised behaviour ie not simply self exploration,
• violence towards other children with the intent to cause serious harm,
• self harm comparable to cutting or scratching of skin,
• suicidal thoughts.

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