[NuckingFutz]

Not a parent but I am trying to understand why parents do not get their kids proper healthcare? There are so many kids on mental health forums proactively seeking to get some kind of mental healthcare and get on with their lives. They talk about how their parents will not take them for help. This just brings me to tears. It is not just getting help, the sui rate of teens is through the roof. It does not have to be this way! When I go to the VA for my own healthcare, I am surrounded by magnets, mouse pads and everything else with suicide prevention info and hotline numbers. Tons of free support groups. Some teens say that they are not allowed to call hotlines or go on mental health websites. I just am trying to understand...why? Parental perspectives anyone?

[Yoda]

For several years I thought my son was likely to be a mass murderer that everybody would say, "why didn't they see it coming"? I did see it coming. He talked about wanting to kill people. I put him in a psychiatric hospital three times. I tried to get him into a long term mental health care facility for troubled teens but the hospital always said his behavior improved while in hospital so he didn't need to go. But as soon as he came home the craziness started all over again, stabbing walls with knives, breaking things, threatening to kill his biological dad and kids at school that bullied him. He was in private therapy for a year but he would not open up to the therapist so the therapist said there was no reason to continue. With no insurance for doctors, hospitals or meds it has been a challenge to get him what he needs but we have done without things people take for granted (like new school clothes, he has had no new clothes for more than a year) so he can get at least some treatment even if it is not as much as he needs. Right now he is supposed to be taking Adderall XR but it costs $300 and I simply cannot afford it. If I buy the Adderall I cannot pay my electric.

But the good part is that he is maturing and less violent now. He still is a special needs child but he is better than he was.

[Rapunzel]

For many parents, it is the same as the reasons why anybody might avoid anything. It's an unknown, and can feel scary and threatening. I've heard parents say that they are afraid their child will be labeled and the label may follow them through life. Money is a factor for some, but even parents offered access to free mental health services tend to resist. They don't want their kids to have mental health problems, and it easier to pretend that everything is ok when they are not dealing with the problems. You have to admit that there is a problem before you are willing to work on it. Parents also tend to fear that they will be judged or otherwise made uncomfortable. And there is the stigma.

My parents stubbornly refused to admit that mental health mattered or that our family had any mental health issues. I grew up with chronic depression, and was pretty desperate for help as a teen, but was silenced. I guess I wasn't desperate enough though, as I didn't present enough of a problem for anybody to think it was necessary to do anything. One of my sisters was referred for therapy by her school and went for a while, but didn't like it and stopped. She was around 10 years old. My brother was very awkward and unusual, and became out of control as a teen. Mom used to fight with him to try to get him out of the van to send him to high school. They resisted the idea of mental health services until they couldn't handle him anymore, and eventually discovered that he was schizophrenic. My parents tried to cover it all up, and not let anybody know about the problems. When my brother was in jail, he had a psychological evaluation that described him accurately and recommendations were given that might have helped him to put together some meaning in his life, but unfortunately it was too late. He wasn't given the services he needed and killed himself two years later, when he was being transitioned from the jail and evaluated for placement elsewhere. It didn't have to be that way, and those of us who only had depression and anxiety during childhood would have had much better chances for a better life if the problems were addressed much earlier.

[NuckingFutz]

Stigma, shame, ignorance, being labeled, treatment resistant disorders, finances. Lots of reasons why. Some are valid, this is true. I think I am going to narrow my focus to the preventable. Do parents here believe that a dead kid is better than having a labeled kid? How much denial does it take to believe that your kid who has asked you for help, won't become a statistic? What do you think it will take this in terms of public awareness and such? What can we do to make sure our kids HAVE a future? I thank you for your comments.

Originally Posted by NuckingFutz

Stigma, shame, ignorance, being labeled, treatment resistant disorders, finances. Lots of reasons why. Some are valid, this is true. I think I am going to narrow my focus to the preventable. Do parents here believe that a dead kid is better than having a labeled kid? How much denial does it take to believe that your kid who has asked you for help, won't become a statistic? What do you think it will take this in terms of public awareness and such? What can we do to make sure our kids HAVE a future? I thank you for your comments.

I don't think any reasonable parent would think a dead kid is better than having a labeled kid. That's over-simplifying the issue.

I do think parents really struggle with finances - a very real issue. I do think many simply are unaware of mental health issues and how to get help (that applies not just to kids, but adults). I think parents get a lot of bad advice from other people who really don't understand what is going on in the family. They grab at those solutions first. It's a lot of fear. Fear is probably the biggest issue: fear of the unknown mostly. No one goes into parenting thinking they will have a child with mental health issues. Guilt is a biggy. You'd think that would drive them to get help, but often it paralyzes them.

I think the parents most willing to get help for their children are those that have struggled with mental health issues themselves. The fear of the unknown isn't a factor anymore. I've helped two of my sons get mental health assistance in the last year. It was an automatic for me, but I can see how frightening it must be for someone who has never dealt with this before.

[serafim_etal]

I'm not a parent, but I can give another possible reason. Kids may say on forums that their parents would not help/get them help...yet have never asked. That was my situation. A large part of my problem was my parents. I knew full well that they would never consent to getting me any help, so I never even brought the issue up. I would have possibly discussed that in a forum such as this, if it were available to me at that time.

I gave/offered my son help for seven years and to be honest he didn't realise the or appreciate the help being offered he just abused it.

He told lies he rarely told the truth and often would just say anything but what was needed to be said, the only time I feel he got help was when we went for a family one and he spoke up about how he was feeling.

He was given medication which looking back I should not of allowed him to have.

I dont have a good experience with Drs for the young .... Sorry.

[NuckingFutz]

Guess the guy that decided to plow his piper through that building I just passed an hour ago did not get the help he needed either. The sight the sounds and the smell justs makes me sick. I appreciate all the responses. This is indeed a very complex issue.

[NuckingFutz]

So anyone have an answer to my question about what to do about increasing awareness about this issue? Teen suicide rates 3rd amoung deaths in teens. I think it would be worth looking into.

[Rapunzel]

I support training teachers and school counselors to be more aware of and proactive about kids' mental health and recognizing signs that someone may need a referral for help. Parents resist schools getting involved though, even when it is in the best interest of their kids. I'd like to see more parents getting involved with parenting groups when their kids are young or even before having kids. A lot of problems could be prevented if more parents were more aware of how to support children's emotional development.

[NuckingFutz]

Excellent point.

[pachyderm]

I'd say that some parents might not seek mental health treatment for their kids out of a combination of feelings of stigma and the (not unreasonable) perception that genuine help is not really to be found. The two are probably related.

[sunrise]

I can only speak from my own experience and not explain others' actions. For me and my (then) husband, we felt that there was something not quite right about our daughter for years. But it was always kind of right on the boundary of not knowing for sure. When you are a parent, you don't have the experience of having seen hundreds and thousands of kids and knowing what truly is "normal" or what is cause for concern. We began in the school system to try to get help there. Neither of us was familiar with any kind of mental health services and I am not sure we would have identified that as a need of our daughter. We believed school experts would be able to assess whether there was a problem. Although every year, it seemed, out daughter's teacher (a new one each year) would come to us with concerns about our daughter (or we would go to them with questions), when we tried to progress further in the system we didn't get further. We spoke to the school "child advocate" (at school 2 days a week) and she would agree to observe our daughter in her classroom, and then we would speak to her. There was a different advocate each year--no continuity and the year would be half gone or more before we could motivate her to do anything. We were always told that our daughter was just experiencing a little trouble transitioning between phases in child development. When we said, but she's been like this for years when she wasn't in a transition, they didn't seem to see the flaw in their logic. One teacher, who was also a therapist, told us our daughter behaved like children who have been sexually abused, but she had no authority to do anything, so we kept trying to get help and advice from the school. (We investigated as thoroughly as we knew how the idea of abuse but could find none.) We could never speak with the school psychologist (1/2 day per week at our school) as our daughter didn't meet criteria to get his services. We were always sent away by the advocate after reassurances that our daughter was fine. And then this would repeat itself the enxt year. Inside, we had doubts, but we thought we took the right course and went by what these experts said. WE were also told that our daughter did not qualify for any services because her school performance was not a certain amount below average. If she would only do more poorly in school, she could hold their attention. The advocate did have her join "friendship groups" for several years, but again, these would start so late in the year, and only last meet weekly for about 2 months, and then the year would be over. I think that was a good approach, though, but needed to last all year.

In middle school, it was a different system. Our daughter was not taking the divorce well, and we sought support and advice from a school counselor. Dead end here too (even though by this time she was failing classes). The only thing the counselor did was about a half year later invite my daughter to join a "divorce group" (kind of like a group therapy meeting with the counselor running it). My daughter would do no such thing. She was extremely withdrawn and introverted and would never participate in something like that--where you were supposed to talk about your feelings and problems to a group of kids you might know. We finally decided not to listen to the school experts and sought independent help. The only reason we even thought to do this was because I had begun seeing a therapist myself and learned more about mental health and then knew how a therapist could help and that I should trust my judgment more instead of the school officials. I had our family doctor do an assessment for depression, and she did not think my daughter was overly depressed but somewhat. She gave the name of a couple of psychologists from flyers sent to her in the mail--she had no idea who these people were. I looked them up and they were all very clinical. I was worried they would take a strictly medical approach, and they seemed allied with schools somehow--like referrals to schools were an important part of their business. Instead, we found a therapist on our own and got my daughter into private psychotherapy. She did not want to go, so this may be another reason parents don't put their kids in therapy. She took the divorce really hard, and three years later, she is still in therapy. I am glad she has this caring adult in her life. Just in the last few months, she has seemed like she is coming out of her shell and not quite as withdrawn--maybe not quite as depressed or hostile to the world, and more willing to communicate. She doesn't have any friends but is showing more interest in that area lately. She is doing better in school this year. Her therapist is thrilled with all of this, and so am I and her father. She and I also attended family therapy for a while together. We have certainly tried over the years. Maybe we could have done more sooner, but it was a case of our trusting experts and not having enough knowledge of mental health ourselves.

Parents are not mental health professionals and cannot be expected to diagnose their own kids. A common point of entry is the school system, and they often aren't that knowledgable either, or are very willing to look the other way, unless the child is failing school. By this I do not mean the teachers, but the higher ups and support and services people at the schools. It just seems like it wouldn't have been so hard for those people to say, "your daughter may be depressed--we can't help you, but you might want to look into getting outside help."

We have avoided the label problem with our daughter by paying for her therapy completely out of pocket. We are lucky enough to be able to afford this. That way, she will have no potentially stigmatizing depression (or other) diagnosis in her medical records. When she is an adult, she can make her own choice about that. But she is a minor now, and we do not want to possibly circumscribe her future opportunities in life with a mental health diagnosis in her records.

Anyway, NuckingFutz, I hope that helps you understand one couple's efforts to get their child help. We probably should have been more aggressive earlier, but we just didn't know, and I guess we welcomed the reassurance we got from the school experts instead of pushing more. Kids don't often ask their parents for help with mental health issues, so in many cases, I don't think parents are ignoring kids' overt pleas for mental health treatment. In some cases, yes, but certainly not all. Kids may not even know they have mental health issues. Often in children, an emotional or mental problem will manifest as physical symptoms (stomach ache, head ache, nausea) and will fool everyone.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by serafim_etal

Kids may say on forums that their parents would not help/get them help...yet have never asked. That was my situation. A large part of my problem was my parents. I knew full well that they would never consent to getting me any help, so I never even brought the issue up.

I had a somewhat similar situation when I was growing up. It didn't occur to me to say anything to my parents. And I had no knowledge of mental health services so just wouldn't have known what to ask for or if that was what I needed. Perhaps if I had said something to my parents, they would have known what to do. But I couldn't imagine telling them, and I can't imagine they would take me to a psychiatrist. But who knows?

After I was hit by a car, I became too scared to cross that road anymore. That road stood between me and school, so I started skipping school frequently, because I was too scared to cross the road. I would just wander around all day on my own and then come home when school got out. My parents would be notified by the school and would be so mad at me and beat me for missing school. But for some reason, it never occurred to me to tell them it was because I was too scared to cross the road. I think I thought they would not accept that as a valid excuse and would think I was just trying to get out of going to school. And I was really embarrassed to be so scared and didn't want them or my brothers and sisters to know. It was preferable to me to skip school and be beaten. That was a child's way of thinking. I really didn't give my parents a chance to know my true problem because I kept it hidden and wouldn't tell them. They thought I was just being bad.

Around the same time, I began pulling my hair out and had bald spots. My mom did take me to the doctor then, and apparently the doctor told my mom that I could be helped by having a calmer, less stressful home life. My brothers and sisters told me they were told by my mom that they had to be nice to me, for this reason. They made fun of me for this. The doctor we saw never asked me what the matter was, and I'm not sure I would have answered, because my mother was right there with me and I feared being embarrassed or getting beaten again. The doctor should have asked to speak with me alone or tried to develop some kind of regular meeting and rapport with me. She was also very scary to me. She spoke really loudly and directly (in my face), with a heavy accent--I was very intimidated. I really think the system just is not set up to help children. True, this was a long time ago, and we like to think the care is better now. But then look at my own daughter's recent experience and this group therapy for divorce she was invited to join and couldn't due to her introverted nature--just seems like another ineffectual attempt to help. When she couldn't do that, she was offered no alternative (individually meeting with the counselor?). I'm not sure much has changed at all.