For the past two years, the Children’s Mental Health Campaign has held 19 forums on mental health needs of kids across the Commonwealth. While each forum has been different, one statistic universally resonates with all audiences and brings home the importance of the issue: Suicide is the third leading cause of death among children between the ages of 10 – 24; of those who commit suicide, 90% (90%!) have a diagnosable and treatable mental illness at the time of their death.
It’s not so much that 90% of young people who commit suicide have a mental illness – it’s that the illness is treatable that makes the current situation so terrible.
Maybe if mental health was not such a taboo subject – maybe if we were able to openly discuss disorders of the brain – more young people would realize that there is another way to deal with their pain.
The brain is part of the body. We need to treat it as such and not be afraid to talk about how we can make it better when it doesn’t work the way it should.
The time is NOW!
I have a son who was 5 years old, I believe the problem of depression and mental disorders in children can be overcome by giving attention and affection, we serve not only as a parent for him, but also as friends who could understand his feelings.
Depression on a child’s physical and mental development is very harmful to a child’s psychological make too sensitive to the outside world adopted an evasive attitude of retreat, but also can cause height of children are stunted.