Over the past ten years or so, there has been a significant increase in children and young teens having suicidal thoughts. Doctors are seeing more and more of these children and young teenagers in emergency rooms showing up for anxiety attacks, depressive episodes, and suicidal thoughts, feelings, and attempts. This is even more common during the school year as the kids are feeling the pressure of school as well as suffering from issues related to social anxiety, bullying, peer pressure, and more. There was a study recently published by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that from 2008 to 2015 children ages 5 years old to 17 years old are being admitted to children’s hospitals for reasons relating to suicide, either suicidal thoughts, feelings, or attempts. It was found by researchers at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt that girls are more often attempting suicide than boys are. It was also found that the suicide numbers were higher during the school year and lower during the summer months. Depression in children should never be taken lightly or dismissed One of the issues that kids face is that many parents don’t take depression and anxiety in their children seriously. They…
One of the aspects of children’s health has been overlooked for quite some time. For many years, pediatricians didn’t consider the significant importance of a child’s mental health. Maybe simply because of a lack of understanding, or perhaps a lack of motivation in that it was necessary, regardless of the reason there was a time that a large majority of pediatricians did not place as much of an emphasis on a child’s mental health as they did their physical health. In the past, very often children who suffered from mental issues such as anxiety, depression, or a mood disorder, were simply dismissed. These problems weren’t considered valid or legit in that the child would simply “grow out of them.” Occasionally a parent would send a child to a child psychologist, but these problems were not taken as seriously in children as they were adults. How serious is a child’s mental health? As reported by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in 5 children in the United States from the ages of 3 to 17, have a mental, emotional, or behavior disorder that is diagnosable; those numbers are contributable to about 15 million children. An astonishing 80 percent…
Social media has become a staple in our lives – whether you are young or old. While there are many benefits to this level of connectivity, it has also created more issues than we could have ever imagined. Take Instagram, for example. Today’s youth are faced with images of stereotypical beautiful and alluring women with slender waists, long legs, and the ‘perfect’ figure. So how do young girls compete? The answer is that, as parents and role models, we must learn how to instill confidence and empower these young women to love and value themselves. Raising a confident girl in this Instagram culture isn’t easy and will undoubtedly come with hurdles, but it can be done. You may be asking yourself, “how can I encourage my daughter to be confident in who she is when she is confronted on a daily basis with an unrealistic standard of beauty and perfection?” While we’ve come a long way since the gender-prescribing attitude of the 1950s, there is still work to be done. Movements such as #MeToo and #TimesUp have helped change the way we view women – and ourselves – as we work hard to create a more inclusive, positive culture of…
Learning to problem solve is often difficult even for some adults, but it is one of the most important skills we learn and need in life. So why not start teaching our children to solve problems at an early age. Im not talking about the “how can you get the triangle into the box kind of problem.” Im referring to the “what if she would have pushed you back,” kind of problems.
My favorite thing (or least favorite), is when I have a family come in and mom and/or dad is complaining about the child’s behavior, and all the mean time the parent has cussed, hit, or discussed an adult matter right in front of the child. My response is “Monkey See Monkey Do….sometimes.”
If you counted how many times a day you tell your child not to do something, then counted how many times you tell them you like what they are doing; which number do you think would be higher?? Yup, most likely the what not to do number, right? Several research studies have been done finding that children who are praised for their behaviors are more likely to continue repeating the good behaviors. I wanted to blog about the different types of praise and how to give it appropriately.
