By Fazeena Saleem
DOHA: Parents are advised to be aware of any behavioural changes in children and adolescents and to seek help from experts.
Some behavioural changes in children can also occur due to wrong parenting methods, according to an expert in child and adolescent psychiatry.
“It’s important that if they (parents) see any changes in the kid’s behaviour to seek right help and the school too should be conscious about the behaviour of students,” Dr Hanan Derby, Senior Consultant, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Director, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, told this daily.
Children and adolescents can show changes like poor performance at school, socially, or at home. They might even show bad behaviour.
Lack of interest, mood swings and physical aches are among other symptoms of behavioural changes.
Some children are vulnerable to mental health problems due to genetic, neuro-biological and environmental reasons.
However, Dr Derby said, “We still have stigma where people think it’s not right to access mental health service. They don’t acknowledge that there is need to take medicine.”
But sometimes children with behavioural difficulties do not actual show mental health problems.
“We sometimes get referrals of children with symptoms and challenging behaviour that people think they have mental illnesses.
“But when we assess them, frequently we don’t find any significant evidence,” said Dr Derby.
“It’s related to the parenting style which needs to be appropriate, sometimes it could be that children are not happy at school or subjected to something like bullying and show behavioural difficulties.
“This is an area we need to invest a lot in as a service and look at it strategically, we need to focus more on supporting and educating parents,” she added.
There is no data in Qatar on the prevalence of mental health problems among children.
International studies on adults indicate that one in five will be affected by mental illness at some stage of their lives and that one in 20 children and adolescents experience mental health difficulties.
HMC has taken steps to create awareness about mental health problems among schools.
A workshop to raise awareness about mental health and dealing with mental issues among students and teenagers was held at 20 Independent schools recently.
It aimed to promote the concept of mental health in a school setting, enhance communication with students, highlight common mental health issues facing teenagers by identifying the proper ways of dealing with them and the most suitable time for referral.
The Peninsula
