Lack of Psychiatric Services For Children Under 16

Two days ago I happen to come across an article on the internet. It was about a young boy of about 9 years old with a very severe mental illness who happen to get a hold of a knife and premeditated going into school and stabbing a peer.

The really unfortunate thing here is that parents today do not have the necessary tools and/or training through parental work-shops to recognize when they might have a child in the family that is severely trouble mentally and emotionally, especially at such a tender age of below 16. Some Doctors today, just as much as when I was 16 are still very much reluctant to do assessments on young children below and to diagnose them with a mental illness, as they fear that it many be a hinder on their development stages. I personally feel that if more parents and/or Doctors showed an interest in working together to recognize different behavioral and mood patterns of young children under the ages of 16 today, that just maybe we might be able to prevent what I read in an online article. There needs to be more structure and discipline at home and when they children are away from home during the day time hours and at school the structure and discipline needs to be carried over and teachers and other staff need to be more aware as well of these young childrens behavioral patterns as well and attend to it immediately.

I also feel there needs to be more Psychological testings recommended by the school boards when there is recognized signs of the young child being even the slightest withdrawn/depressed/slightest violent behavior at this young age. If all of this is ignored and these young children are allowed to carry forth with their behavior as I read in this article, by the time they reach the age of 16 - I can be certain they will be standing before a Judge with some very serious charge.

I was quite disturbed by this article when I first read it, as this is a behavior that I had seen before in my own past as a young person by someone in a group home that I once lived in. There was absolutely no structure or supervision in this group home.

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