Most professionals and the latest WHO reports agree that children also suffer from mental disorders. Seventy percent of adult psychiatric illnesses have their origin in childhood and during this period, many of the symptoms that will later affect adulthood can already be perceived.
Serious disorders in childhood
Of the emotional problems that children may suffer some will develop into SMD (Severe Mental Disorders).
Psychoses can have premorbid phases in childhood and, together with MDD (General Developmental Disorder) and the autistic spectrum, are the syndromes with the most dramatic consequences for the evolution and autonomy of the child.
Between 4-5% of children may present affective problems of different order and intensity.
Conduct disorders may be associated, in the most severe cases, with problems of delinquency, substance use and difficulties in maintaining an orderly work and emotional life, and in establishing adequate social ties.
Substance use may be related to an underlying psychiatric disorder or, in vulnerable individuals, precipitate it, substance use may lead to risky behaviors.
Eating disorders (ED), such as anorexia and bulimia, are among the disorders that create the most social alarm, with multiple symptomatic gradations ranging from mild evolutionary problems to highly severe dysmorphic disorders.
Psychiatrization of everyday life
While stressing that childhood is not free of SMD, we also emphasize that there is a psychiatrization of problems that are intrinsic to human beings. It is thus possible to diagnose as an illness what would be a daily, evolutionary, existential or relational problem.
To be shy, mobile or disordered does not imply, simply because of this, to have a disease, although it can mean that one has a problem.
Banal problems can be overdiagnosed as supposed illnesses and, on the other hand, serious disorders can be trivialized.
Differential diagnosis and treatment
It is important to differentiate what is a mental disorder from what is an emotional problem. In the case of children and adolescents who present some warning sign (affective, cognitive or behavioral), the first task is to make a diagnosis that distinguishes whether we are dealing with a disorder or a “problem”.
Children and adolescents who suffer or may suffer from a severe mental disorder need to start treatment as soon as possible, which, depending on the case, may involve several disciplines and procedures (psychiatry, psychology, family therapy, individual therapy, pharmacology, etc.).
Likewise, children and adolescents with emotional problems expressed in the form of affective or behavioral symptoms should be able to undergo preventive and therapeutic interventions that are not very invasive. In these cases, psycho-educational counseling for parents and/or psychotherapeutic intervention aimed at improving their ability to cope with the “demands” of life would be indicated.