I'm worried about my child - what are the warning signs of mental illness?

The term “mental illness” is used to talk about problems with thinking, feeling and behavior that get in the way of a person’s day to day life. These problems can also be upsetting to the child/youth and their family and friends.

Every person’s experience with mental illness is different, but there are some things that can be seen in a number of mental illnesses. A few examples are:

• Social Withdrawal – less time with friends, less time doing school or fun activities
• Depression – sadness that doesn’t get better even with supports, irritability, blaming themselves for things out of their control, not being able to see good in situations, tiredness, sleeping or eating too much or not enough
• Anxiety – fears about things that can’t cause harm, not being able to be out of sight of some adults (for example, not being able to go to sleep in their own room, afraid to go to school)
• Attention/Focus – having a hard time completing work, making careless mistakes, disorganized, forgetful
• Impulse control – hard time stopping to think before acting, interrupting others
• Getting along with others – arguing with people in charge (parents, teachers), fighting with peers, not taking blame after making mistakes
• Excessive anger/aggression

Mental illness can cause mild or severe problems for children and families. Mental illness can be short or long term.

When trying to understand mental illness, it is important to look at all the possible causes. Health problems, relationship problems and environment stresses can all be causes of mental health problems, so all of these must be thought about during an assessment.

For more information:

• The Michigan Family Resource Guide
• The National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health
• Association for Children’s Mental Health
• The National Alliance on Mental Illness
• The American Psychiatric Association
• The American Academic of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry