Few people know that children as young as four can show symptoms of some mental conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Such children are hyperactive, have poor attention span and can be very disruptive at home and at school.
Most go undiagnosed and do not benefit from the beatings from teachers and parents which are so freely given by frustrated parents and teachers.
How would you tell if a child is going through depression? My four-year-old niece has become unusually moody and her mom suspects depression.
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It is probable that the behaviour your niece is showing is not that of a depressive illness in the technical sense. It might all the same be indicative of the fact that she is going through some emotional difficulties, which in children sometimes manifest as a change in behaviour.
I am glad that this matter of child mental health has come up today, for a number of reasons. The first is the fact that Kenyans have tabled mental health issues and we are no longer shy to talk about this subject which only a few years ago was taboo.
The veil of stigma is slowly but surely lifting.
The second reason is that the mental health of our children has been neglected for many years and yet we know that 50 per cent of all such disorders have an onset before the age of 14!
This means that the time to find and treat these conditions is in primary school. Just so that you know, 75 per cent of all mental disorders have an onset before 24 years. The time to intervene is in school, and university. By the time they reach adulthood, many people have conditions that are more difficult to treat.
The third reason is that it gives us a chance to ponder if there is any relation between school unrest and mental disorders in adolescents in Kenya. First to your niece.
From the information you have given us, the change in behaviour at this young age is most likely to be found within the family. For example, what has changed in the family in the recent past? Are the parents fighting? has one of them left home or indeed is it possible that one or another parent has become depressed, (the child distressed by this situation).
Put differently whatever happens to parents has a direct impact on the child. Children are a good mirror to the emotional states of their parents.
In this regard, experts talk about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), as being important predeterminants of mental disorders. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect, domestic violence, parental separation, and parental death are all described as ACE’s. Is your niece going through any of these?
Few people know that children as young as four can show symptoms of some mental conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Such children are hyperactive, have poor attention span and can be very disruptive at home and at school. Most go undiagnosed and do not benefit from the beatings from teachers and parents which are so freely given by frustrated parents and teachers.
Though effective treatment options exist, few parents are aware and live-in misery for many years. Some of these children end up dropping from school and may go on to abuse drugs.
With so many primary school children at risk, it stands to reason that both teachers and parents should receive some education on the recognition of these conditions. Just to make the point more dramatically. Suicide is a leading cause of death in childhood!
This then leads us to the question of whether there is a link between the frequent cases of unrest in Kenyan schools and the mental wellbeing of the children.
The answer to this question is more difficult than we would like it to be, and many armchair critics have blamed any real or imagined enemy as the true and only cause. Accepting the complexity of the matter, some truths are self-evident.
For example, it is true of suicide, that the more graphically you describe it in the media, the more likely you are to get the so-called ‘copycat phenomenon’.
More and more people want to copy the methods used in the suicide, particularly if a celebrity is involved. For this reason, mental health experts have issued guidelines to journalists on the reporting code of suicide.
It is possible to speculate that a similar approach on reporting might be helpful in reducing the instances of mass indiscipline. This copycat phenomenon might be at play in some schools. Dramatic as the reports of indiscipline are, we all know that most schools are unaffected.
We also know that many factors (including Covid-19 and economic challenges) have put our society under much pressure.
If in doubt about what to do about your niece, as always, find a mental health expert to offer an opinion.
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