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Children's mental health: what you need to know

Today’s Parent/RBC cross-Canada survey reveals how much — and how little — parents know about what’s going on inside young minds

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Originally published in Today's Parent November 2011


Dylan’s story

When doctors turned Dylan Collins away from the emergency department two years ago, he threw a chair in the examining room. It was the 10-year-old Calgary boy’s second trip to the hospital in two weeks, and he and his mom Jane Collins had no intention of leaving without help. Dylan’s father had taken him in when Dylan was having suicidal thoughts; Collins dragged Dylan back when he started going into specifics about how he was going to kill himself. “I was hiding the knives and scissors,” she says. (The family’s names have been changed at their request.)

Dylan’s family had been trying to get him help for a year. He’d always been a bright, intense kid, extra-sensitive to touch and sounds, but by grade four, he was swearing at his teacher and lashing out at classmates. His doctor referred him for talk therapy but it wasn’t enough. “He seemed sad and withdrawn, often crying,” says Collins. A few months later, Dylan was diagnosed with mild anxiety. The psychologists who assessed him recommended group therapy, for which there was a six-month waiting list. By then, Dylan had been kicked out of his classroom. “His self-esteem was on the floor,” says Collins.

It wasn’t until Dylan’s outburst in the emergency room that he finally got the help he needed: therapy, anger management and antidepressant medication. “We’re one of the lucky families, due to our persistence,” says Collins. “We’re thankful we had the services available; he could have committed suicide.”

Unfortunately, Dylan’s case is not unusual: While children are increasingly being diagnosed with mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder, families often struggle to get them help. And getting an early handle on these issues is critical. “If the brain is wired improperly, over time the pathways get laid down more firmly,” explains Marshall Korenblum, the chief psychiatrist of the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre for Children and Families in Toronto. The longer a person goes without treatment, he explains, the more entrenched this wiring becomes. Not only does the condition worsen, the complications do as well. A child with anxiety may avoid school, fall behind even flunk out. Their friendships may fizzle as they lose touch with peers; their family life may suffer from fighting with their parents about going to school. “So then we have to treat the mental illness and the impact,” says Korenblum.

On the other hand, when children are properly diagnosed and treated early on, they can develop good coping strategies and avoid many of the secondary complications, says Korenblum. “The illness itself is easier to treat, and the school and social relations stay on track.”

Kids are waiting too long for help

Early intervention is in short supply when it comes to children’s mental health. In July and August of this year, Today’s Parent and RBC conducted an online survey of more than 2,500 parents from across Canada about their awareness of and attitudes toward children’s mental health. The results underscore some of the barriers to the early identification and treatment of mental illness in children.

More than half of parents who have kids with a mental illness had to wait longer than a year for official diagnosis; 22 percent of those had to wait longer than three years. And, on average, kids had to wait another year for treatment. That can feel like forever in the life of a child, says Ramona Alaggia, Factor-Inwentash Chair in Children’s Mental Health at the University of Toronto. “A lot of developmental milestones get put on hold while a child is on a waiting list,” says Alaggia. “Once they fall behind socially and academically, it can feel insurmountable.”

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