Over fourteen million children in the United States, that is every one in five children has a mental illness. Several opinions and a variety of voices within the children’s mental health field have campaigned for modifying the approaches to children and adolescent’s mental health. The goal is to transform the system of care approach to understanding that “young people” are not just “little adults”. The mental health system has faced several challenges while trying to develop programs and services for children and adolescents based on an understanding of needs for specific stages of development, as opposed to just modifying the adult mental health systems of care approach. We are all aware that mental illness does not discriminate against age,
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Researchers study a range of influences, including how genetics shape a child's development as well as how experiences play a role. The title of this book, Developmental Psychopathology, is intended to emphasize that psychopathology in children is best understood in relation to the changes – progressions, regressions, deviations, successes, and failures – that occur in the course of children’s attempts to master the developmental tasks they face. (Achenbach, 1974, p. 3). The main goal is to prove that children are not just “little adults”. Normal developmental psychopathology informs our understanding of abnormal processes. We must first understand why children and adolescents develop mental health disorder, whereas other children develop normally considering the number of factors that come into play and that foster a healthy adjustment. In any system of research on the developmental psychopathology in children one must examine the larger context of the system. For instance, parent and child interactions and relationships are key factors that affect a child’s development. The impact of parent practices on children are affected by other characteristics (e.g., temperament, personality), the quality of family and social relationships, and the environment (e.g., neighborhood, schools, peer relationships) and culture. The effects of different parenting practices on children vary across different ethnic groups. For example, strict parental discipline styles increase the risk that a child may develop psychological issues for example anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem, among white families. Studies show that the same discipline style posed little or no risk to child of Asian or African American families (Chao 1994; Deater-Deckard et al. 1996; Steinberg, Dornbusch, and Brown 1992). A simple explanation to these findings
Researchers study a range of influences, including how genetics shape a child's development as well as how experiences play a role. The title of this book, Developmental Psychopathology, is intended to emphasize that psychopathology in children is best understood in relation to the changes – progressions, regressions, deviations, successes, and failures – that occur in the course of children’s attempts to master the developmental tasks they face. (Achenbach, 1974, p. 3). The main goal is to prove that children are not just “little adults”. Normal developmental psychopathology informs our understanding of abnormal processes. We must first understand why children and adolescents develop mental health disorder, whereas other children develop normally considering the number of factors that come into play and that foster a healthy adjustment. In any system of research on the developmental psychopathology in children one must examine the larger context of the system. For instance, parent and child interactions and relationships are key factors that affect a child’s development. The impact of parent practices on children are affected by other characteristics (e.g., temperament, personality), the quality of family and social relationships, and the environment (e.g., neighborhood, schools, peer relationships) and culture. The effects of different parenting practices on children vary across different ethnic groups. For example, strict parental discipline styles increase the risk that a child may develop psychological issues for example anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem, among white families. Studies show that the same discipline style posed little or no risk to child of Asian or African American families (Chao 1994; Deater-Deckard et al. 1996; Steinberg, Dornbusch, and Brown 1992). A simple explanation to these findings