The life of the therapist brings unexpected adventures. Once, I had a client who really kept it from me. Before I got creative, she spent most of the time hiding behind my extra office chair, suggesting that we leave the office altogether and go to the nearest vending machine to buy some snacks. That’s when we actually started talking.
My client, if you haven’t guessed it yet, is a shy kid.
Child therapy-if done well-looks very different from adult therapy. On the one hand, adults usually receive treatment voluntarily, while children and adolescents are usually brought by caring parents or caregivers. Children may be scared, uncertain, or unwilling to speak. In some cases, they may even view treatment as punishment.
Therefore, when it comes to children, it makes sense that we need to treat treatment—and behavioral care in general—in a different way. Unfortunately, children are still often immersed in adult-centered treatment models, and these models do not work for them at all.
This mismatched pattern is an important reason why we are facing an urgent child mental health crisis today-children’s hospitals across the country are warning of this crisis Long waiting list Receive care and announce State of emergencyIn order to solve this problem, we need to create a behavioral health care system designed to meet the unique needs of children from the ground up.
What would such a system look like? First, the pediatric behavioral healthcare system must first help families figure out what kind of support they need. Many times, children’s needs are not professionally classified to guide them to get the right care, whether it is lifestyle changes, treatment, medication management, or other forms of support. Instead, parents and caregivers will eventually go through frustrating trial and error just to find out a treatment plan that might work for them.
This is particularly disturbing because children are more likely than adults to have multiple behavioral health problems that require coordinated, multidisciplinary care.Let’s do Children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as an example: 27% of them also have conduct disorder, 18% are anxious, and 15% are depressed. This means that children with ADHD usually need a team of clinicians to support their care. However, pediatric behavioral health providers rarely work in coordinated teams. This requires the family to act as a temporary liaison between multiple medical institutions and the nursing system-this is a complex role, and many parents and caregivers have neither training nor time to undertake.
Although options such as counseling or digital tools can significantly improve a child’s symptoms and quality of life, it is also difficult for families to find care for behavioral health problems that are just beginning to develop. For example, a performing child may benefit from counseling that helps them manage their emotions by solving problems such as stress, anxiety, and sleep problems. Self-directed content can also help parents make changes directly at home, or as a way of empowering older children to take care of them. In addition to clinical care, a truly effective pediatric behavioral health care plan must also include these options.
In addition, care plans for children must involve adults in the children’s lives. Although children may spend an hour in the clinician’s office a week, they spend many hours in the home and school environment every day. The cooperation between parents, teachers, and children’s treatment team to strengthen the curriculum and habits is the key to success.
The participation of parents is particularly important. Parental behavior training is an important part of children’s behavioral health care.The two-person care model including parents has been proven Three times the probability of being effective Instead of taking care of the children alone.
These methods combine to create a behavioral health care model that meets the unique needs of children. If we really care about the behavioral health of children, we must make this model the norm.
For a long time, we have been forcing children to reluctantly accept services for adults. We let them go through an unnecessary trial and error process, keep their parents and teachers out of the way, limit their choices, and set up bureaucratic barriers to break and divide the care they receive. As demonstrated by today’s pediatric behavioral health crisis, the results are simply tragic.
Now is the time for change.
Photo: Metamorworks, Getty Images
