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When To Seek Help For A Child or Adolescent

Knowing that your child or adolescent is suffering is the worse possible thing that a parent could face.  But even so, the decision to seek professional help for his/her child can be an extremely difficult process.  The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry suggests using the following guides to determine when professional care is needed.

For Children

  • Marked fall in school performance
  • Poor grades in school despite trying very hard
  • A lot of worry or anxiety
  • Regular refusal to go to school, go to sleep or take part in activities that are normal for the child's age
  • Hyperactivity; fidgeting; constant movement beyond regular playing
  • Persistent nightmares
  • Persistent disobedience or aggression (longer than 6 months) and provocative opposition to authority figures
  • Frequent, unexplainable temper tantrums

Pre-Adolescents and Adolescents

  • Pulling away from friends
  • Marked changes in school performance
  • Inability to cope with problems and daily activities
  • Marked changes in sleeping and/or eating habits'
  • Change in friends and decrease in leisure activities 
  • Increase in physical complaints
  • Not fitting in, being an outsider
  • Sexual acting out
  • Depression shown by sustained, prolonged negative mood and attitude, often accompanied by poor appetite, difficulty sleeping or thoughts of death
  • Abuse of alcohol and/or drugs
  • Intensive fear of becoming obese with no relationship to actual body weight, purging food or restricting eating
  • Persistent nightmares
  • Excessive worry or anxiety
  • Threats of self-harm or harm to others
  • Cutting school
  • Self-injury or self-destructive behavior
  • Frequent outbursts of anger, aggression
  • Threats to run away
  • Aggressive or non-aggressive consistent violation of the rights of others; opposition to authority, thefts or vandalism
  • Strange thoughts and feelings and unusual behaviors

Mountain View Hospital offers a comprehensive approach to dealing with behavioral conditions in children and adolescents.  For more information please contact the CARELINE at (800) 662-1002.