Is Your Teen Typical, or Troubled?
No one would describe the typical teenager as a particularly rational creature. But some behavior is normal, while some may point to a deeper problem.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health and Children, 11 percent of youth between the ages of 9-17 have a major mental illness. That’s close to 4 million kids. A similar number suffer from less serious mental health problems. And in both cases, the problems go mostly undiagnosed.
The American Psychiatric Foundation, a charitable and educational arm of the American Psychiatric Association, has launched a program for high schools, meant to help teachers and counselors learn to identify the warning signs of mental illness, so that they can point teenagers towards help.
“The earlier the better,” says Steven A. Rubloff, executive director of the American Psychiatric Foundation. “What we know about mental illness is that the bigger the gap between detection and treatment, the poorer the results. And right now, there’s a significant delay between the onset of mental illness and detection.” The new school program, Typical or Troubled? which is underway in 73 high schools, will train those adults who normally interact with teens at school to notice some red flags.
As a parent, you can help, too. Here are some of the things to look for:
- Marked change in school performance, sleeping, and/or eating habits.
- Inability to cope with problems and daily activities.
- Many physical complaints.
- Sexual acting out.
- Depression shown by sustained, prolonged negative mood and attitude, often accompanied by poor appetite, difficulty sleeping, or thoughts of death.
- Abuse of alcohol and/or drugs.
- Intense fear of becoming obese with no relationship to actual body weight, purging food or restricting eating.
- Persistent nightmares.
- Threats of self-harm or harm to others.
- Self-injury or self-destructive behavior.
- Frequent outbursts of anger or aggression.
- Threats to run away.
- Aggressive or nonaggressive consistent violation of rights of others, opposition to authority, truancy, thefts, or vandalism.
- Strange thoughts and feelings, and unusual behaviors.
This list provided courtesy of the American Psychiatric Foundation.
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Comments from readers
tl;dr
Stfu Tamara; crissy get your girl some therapy, but be sure to get involved in it.
You write your post as if you're writing to people who've never gone though being a teenager and having similar stress, social problems, and growing pains.
When I was a teenager growing up, sure we had the same - if not more - stressful situations that you children experience today. The difference is that we didn't cut ourselves, hardly anyone did.
Some psychologists say this advent of "self-harm" is due to the wide public exposure to the "emo" culture. Others argue it's an evolution of a child's way to attract attention in today's day and age or a new sort of mental disorder, because it sure as hell was uncommon in my day.
Whatever the reason, it is a serious act that -NEEDS- good(Kind and helpful, as opposed to strict and harmful) intervention and monitoring, and taking your child to therapy is a great start.
The thing you always want to remember is to level with your child and try not to treat the situation too much different as you would with a situation of lesser importance, because you'll run the risk of alienating your child and pushing her away.
It's great that your child was able to come to you and be truthful about what she's done to herself. It signifies rising maturity in looking/asking for help.
heres some of her problems, her biggest problem is a step father who tries to control her from living life. example is she cannot go any where without first getting permission.she cannot use the phone she gets yelled at, i,ve bought her 2 computers which she has to share with him and then she has to ask if she can use it, she just recently tried speed that was sold to her at school and it was her first time so she paniced when she started to feel funny and went to the school nurse right away so the kids that sold it to her were exspelled and alot of her friends also befriended her so shes having avery hard time coping with all this.shes really a good kid shes been one the honor roll for 2 years now.and im afraid life is gonna get so hard for her that she might do somthing bad! i just dont know what to do, please advise!
I asked him what he took because we do not drink. He drank a whole bottle of Vicks formula 44d cough syrup. I took him to the hopsital only to find out he was trying to take his life and it wasnt the first time. I could only cry. When the nurse asked him to take off his sweater to check his blood pressure we both noticed the scars on his arms. Aparently he has been cutting for some time and as a mother I feel I failed. I did not see that it was any concern that he always wore long sleeve shirts. I neve knew and I feel horible about that. The best thing I did was send him for some help because not only did I want him to get help but he wanted the help. I want to see my son LIVE! and live life to the fullest. I did not pay attention to the signs. they were there but I did not see. Help your child we owe it to them.
If therapy makes you uncomfortable, then you should try to have some other plan in place. I was like you, I thought that therapy was just another way for everyone to tell me I was crazy. If you want to tackle your issues alone, more power to you. Just make sure you have some strong and willing people ready to help you if you find you can't solve them alone. E-mail me if you're ever in need of advice at Mateoffvii@aol.com
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