Anxiety in Children: Causes and Consequences
In the last ten years, diagnoses of anxiety disorders in young people under the age of 17 have increased, from 3.5% to 4.1%. This is stated by the Child Mind Institute, an American not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to facilitate the lives of children and...
Common Causes of Frustration Among Youth in Today’s World
"I am frustrated with my life!" This term has come on the tip of the tongue of almost everyone that we meet today. Today's children and youth are most prone to frustrations. It is not surprising that suicide rates have increased by leaps and bounds all over the world....
Teens and Mental Health
If you have a teenager in your life, or simply recall your own adolescence, you know it’s an emotionally treacherous time under the best of circumstances. But for millions of pre-teens and teens in the U.S., the adolescent years bring problems that go beyond the...
Top 3 strategies to reduce worrying in children
For many children, worry is more than an occasional visitor. Like anxiety, it is manageable in smaller amounts, but in larger doses can become crippling. In particular, worrying about her toy or if the house will be flooded if it rains, can spoil many children's...
Mental Disorders in Children
Each individual is unique in behavior and thinking. But there are some norms and ways of facing situations that are common in everyone. What if you went through a day, feeling depressed and suicidal? Some days yes, a week okay, how about always? And mood swings, do...
How Stress Hurts Children’s Health
W. Thomas Boyce, MD, is chief of the division of developmental medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. He researches the effect of poverty, social subordination, and stress in early childhood on the risk of subsequent physical and...
The Toll of Childhood Adversity
A scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) has added to the evidence that traumatic events in childhood can have a powerful effect not just on people’s future mental health, but on their physical health—specifically heart health. Published...
Should Schools Teach Emotional Skills?
Vicki Zakrzewski, PhD, is education director of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) at the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches other educators how to promote skills in the classroom that encourage empathy and compassion in children. Here, she discusses...
Recognizing PTSD in Children
When we think of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, we usually think of soldiers who have come back from war. But PTSD can occur in anyone. It is increasingly being recognized in children and adolescents who have been exposed to traumatic events such as car...
Antidepressants During Pregnancy and Autism: Is There a Link?
A review article published in JAMA Pediatrics in June 2017 examined 10 studies that looked at antidepressant exposure and autism spectrum disorders. It found that there is an association between a mother’s use of antidepressants during pregnancy and her child...
Is Birth Order Theory Baloney?
Birth order has no measurable effect on personality traits, suggests an analysis of data on 20,000 people in Germany, the U.S., and the U.K., published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Over the years many people have claimed that birth order...
Is ADHD Medication Overused?
The start of a new school year, and with it the return to a regimented daily structure, can highlight problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Many parents are concerned that their child may have the disorder, marked by persistent...
Happiness Comes With Fruits and Veggies
Every so often (actually quite often), we come across studies that don’t deliver lifesaving news but nevertheless provide insights that may motivate people to change some behaviors or thought patterns in positive ways. Here’s one: Eating more fruits and vegetables may...
Adolescents and Anxiety
Can rejection on social media and mobile technologies increase anxiety in young people who are vulnerable to it? Social media and all of its complexities and technologies can be powerful amplifiers of these vulnerabilities. For many young people, there is a...
Rising Rates of Teenage Suicide
A disturbing new report from the CDC shows that rates of adolescent suicide rose substantially in the U.S. between the years 1999 and 2014. The largest increase was among girls ages 10 to 14, whose incidence of suicide rose 200 percent in that 15-year period. And the...
