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NOVEMBER 2005

Update on Children’s Mental Health, 2005

By Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D.

Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D.

This month’s issue of Education Update highlights the tenth anniversary of a publication that has been integral in informing school professionals about important health, education and parenting issues. In partnership with the NYU Child Study Center, Education Update has been at the forefront in disseminating information about child mental health. Their comprehensive coverage of the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders in relation to learning issues, social interactions and family well-being can have a profound effect on enhancing a child’s overall psychological development.

Similar to families throughout our country many children in New York City have psychiatric illness. Whether as complex as autism; as disruptive as attention deficit disorder or as debilitating as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) these children require their parents’ and teachers’ time and attention. Every two minutes another child is diagnosed with a psychiatric illness. The diagnosis is often made after years of despair for parent and child. Millions of other children are never properly diagnosed or treated. These disorders rob children of the ability to learn, make and keep friends and enjoy life.

Over the past year our children have been exposed to extensive suffering from a tsunami, hurricanes, earthquakes, bombings and many other human tragedies. Thousands of children survived these disasters while millions of others around the world have observed horrific sights via media coverage. Many children have been separated from their families, lost their homes, their neighbors, pets, and friends. These situations put children at high risk for developing PTSD, anxiety and depression.

These disasters can have a particular effect on children in New York who lived through the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. Exposure to one traumatic event renders a child more likely to experience a negative reaction to future traumatic events. Watching disasters on television can be detrimental to a child’s mental health, as indicated by research that children who viewed more television news of the attack were two times as likely to develop symptoms of PTSD than children with less TV exposure. Teachers and other school personnel play a key role in the care of children after traumatic events and need to monitor their own mental health and stay alert to students’ needs during difficult times.

Helping children feel safe in unsafe times should be a high priority for parents, teachers, mental health professionals and all those caring for children. Our hope is that with increased awareness of child mental health issues, the stigma of having or being a child with a mental health problem will be diminished and someday completely eliminated. We congratulate Education Update on their 10 year anniversary and look forward to the next ten years of working toward this goal together.#

Dr. Koplewicz is Founder and Director of the NYU Child Study Center and the Arnold and Debbie Simon Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

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