Some Misbehaving Children May Suffer From A Mental Disorder (Really?)
From the archive. This post was first published on the original Green Eggs and Moms blog and is kept here as it was.
Sometimes, children who misbehave may have more than a behavioral problem; they might be suffering from a mental disorder.
This is according to Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
Flickr via bornart
You may read more about it here but the article doesn’t give any more information about the statement above save for these:
- Mental illnesses are developmental brain disorders
- Pediatricians are the first line of defense when identifying mental disorders which appear to be behavior problems
- Pediatricians may use questionnaires to screen for mental illnesses but better ways are:
- Cognitive and genetic tests
Hank Campbell of Science 2.0 says that calling behavior problems mental illnesses may be too much, and a few members of this forum disagree with what Dr. Insel said.
But what I’d like to know is…
What do YOU think about this?