Child Mental Health
Mental Health > Child Mental Health
Most of us reading this will attest to the fact that the knowledge and care facilities of and for child mental health when we were children were quite different. In fact, so were the attitudes toward child mental health.
When a child “acted out,” for instance, he or she might have been considered intentionally doing so to get on someone’s nerves. It wasn’t thought that maybe the child had a biochemical imbalance, that he or she might have desperate psychological shortcomings that a sufficiently equipped facility might provide for. It wasn’t thought that child mental health treatment was preferable over the belt or the stick.
“What are you, mental?” was a favorite in my household, and they didn’t mean I was mentally superior, was overusing my mental capaciousness, or was especially gifted—though with the modern miracles of child mental health I have experienced over the last six years I would wager they did mean I was mentally beyond what they could comprehend.
But rest assured, the days of downplaying a child’s mental health needs—because he/she is only a child--are behind us, and girl power (and boy power) are equalized and acknowledged, regardless of how young, how misbehaved, or how complex the need for mental health counseling information for kids—which is, by the way, available online, listed in phone books under state services, and advertised (and acknowledged as important) in counties and boroughs and townships worldwide. And they are saving lives, daily.
Do not be daunted by the pamphlet or online descriptions. Some child mental health facilities might define their offerings as intended for “persons with serious mental illnesses” (regardless of age), and though this might cause you to flinch or reflect back to when a kid was just having trouble because he was a kid or because she was “just a brat.” That was then. Now, kids are considered as vitally needful as adults, whom they will grow to be like in many, many ways.