The age of children who are diagnosed with mental health problems keeps getting younger and younger.
According to an article from the United Kingdom, children as young as five years old are being treated for anxiety and depression. Officials site parent’s financial woes as well as drug and alcohol abuse as the culprit.
There are also more children now growing up in homes where these problems exist, thus meaning more children will need some sort of clinical help. Young children are facing more adult problems than ever before and their health is being affected as a result.
In the case of drug and alcohol abuse, the activities that are often associated with this type of dependency can create a dangerous environment for a child of any age.
When kids are exposed to such things in their everyday surroundings they are forced to grow up much quicker than necessary and it is no surprise that they develop additional problems as a result.
It is hard to imagine that a child as young as five would need to be medicated to deal with the pangs of life, but it is all too common now.
At least the children’s mental states are not being neglected. If a child is forced to deal with such problems year after year of their young lives with no intervention, then the chance that they too will have a dependency of some sort during their adult years is greater.
What may be interesting to note for future studies are the side effects that could develop as a result of long term use of prescription drugs to treat such mental problems as anxiety and depression.
It may be helping the child for the time being, but do we really know the long-term effects of such exposure? For now, that may be the best answer for kids to be able to deal with these problems at such a tender age, but it would be worthy of additional investigation.
