Commom ECEd Problem

COMMON ECED PROBLEMS

Common Emotional Problems

Children experience many of the same mental health issues as adults. Because children often cannot articulate that something is wrong, these problems may manifest as behavioral issues. According to Mental Health America, childhood mental health issues are prevalent in the United States. About 10 percent of children have anxiety disorders, 10 percent have conduct disorder, 5 to 10 percent have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and around 3 percent suffer from depression.

Types

Common anxiety disorders in children include generalized anxiety disorder, severe phobias, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. Mood disorders include depression and bipolar or manic depression. Disorders causing behavioral issues include ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder and general conduct disorder.

Symptoms

Symptoms of anxiety disorders include unfounded fearfulness, panic attacks, obsessive behaviors and constant worry. Mood disorders often manifest as extended periods of sadness, irritability and lack of interest in life. ADHD symptoms include trouble focusing, short attention span and disruptive hyperactivity. Other symptoms of emotional and behavioral problems include excessive anger, defiance, hatefulness, negativity and social withdrawal.

Effects

Childhood mental health disorders affect nearly every aspect of the child's life. Behavior problems may result in tension at home or punishment at school, compounding the child's feelings of anger or frustration. Often, a child's grades suffer because he is unable to focus on or is uninterested in his work. A child may suffer social effects because of his problem: he may lose interest in his friends or they may pull away because they do not understand his moods and behavior.

Considerations

Behavior problems are often a symptom of another problem. For example, children with an unidentified learning disability may feel frustrated in school, become disinterested and act out. Traumatic situations, such as experiencing or witnessing abuse, can also bring on behavioral problems. Mental and physical health evaluations can rule out other potential causes of the behavior issues.

Treatment

A physician or mental health professional can help you decide on the best treatment options for your child. Common types of treatment for emotional and behavioral problems in children include cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, family therapy and medication such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.

COMMON PHYSICAL PROBLEMS

A child with physical and sensory problem withdraws socially. This affects his/her cognitive and linguistic development and play pattern.

Most of these children are able to learn as other non-handicapped children, if adjustments are made for their particular deficits, by providing them with special facilities, equipment and materials. However, positive acceptance of the child by the parents and teachers is a basic condition for healthy growth and adjustment as well as for the development of self-esteem.
Sometimes a child with physical and sensory impairment may exhibit aggressive behaviour and tend to be disruptive in class due to frustration resulting from emotional problems.

Strategies to reduce aggressive behaviour:

• Accept, encourage and treat the child normally.
• Avoid too much unstructured time or too much unsupervised movement.
• Establish routines and rules.
• Teach the child to express her anger verbally, specially if she has speech and language difficulties.

• Create opportunities for integration.

• Use group work and cooperative learning situations frequently.

• Help in developing self esteem in the child.

• Influencing the attitudes of non handicapped children towards those who are physically and sensorially challenged: Awareness programmes on 'How we could help someone like that in our class' can help improve attitude of normal children towards handicapped children.

• Integrate the child in a normal school as far as possible.

COMMON MORAL PROBLEMS

Lies differ in type, incidence, magnitude and consequence, with many gradations of severity, from harmless exaggeration and embellishment of stories, to intentional and habitual deceit. Behavioral scientist Wendy Gamble identified four basic types of lies for a University of Arizona study in 2000:

• Prosocial: Lying to protect someone, to benefit or help others.
• Self-enhancement: Lying to save face, to avoid embarrassment, disapproval or punishment.
• Selfish: Lying to protect the self at the expense of another, and/or to conceal a misdeed.
• Antisocial: Lying to hurt someone else intentionally.

Lying is considered by most child development specialists to be a natural developmental occurrence in childhood. Though there is no empirical data about how children learn to lie, parental honesty is recognized as a primary influence on the development of truthfulness in children.

Preschool

Making up stories is part of a normal fantasy life for young children. It is a positive sign of developing intelligence and of an active and healthy imagination. Preschool children who are beginning to express themselves through language are not yet able to make a clear distinction between reality and make-believe. Storytelling at this age is seldom an intentional effort to deceive. When preschool children do engage in intentional deceit, it is usually to avoid reprimand. They are concerned with pleasing the parent, and may fear the punishment for admitting a mistake or misdeed.
Many children are socialized by their parents at a very early age to tell "white"; lies to avoid hurting another's feelings. "White lies" or "fibs" are commonplace in many households and social settings and are observed and imitated by children. The incidence of prosocial or "white lies," tends to increase in children as they grow older.
Dr. Kang Lee of the Department of Psychology at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, observed young children telling so-called "white lies" to avoid disappointing the researcher. Such prosocial lying behavior occurred in children as young as age three. Dr. Lee's research found that over 60 percent of the 400 boys and girls he studied would pretend to be pleased when asked how they liked a used bar of soap, given as a prize after playing a game with researchers. When parents instructed the children to "be polite" when the researcher asked if they liked the soap, as many as 80 percent of these children, ages three to 11 years of age were dishonest.
Dr. Michael Lewis of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, has found that as many as 65 percent of the children he studied had learned to lie by age two and one half. This research also reveals a correlation between higher IQ and the incidence of lying in children.

School-age children

Children from age five or six have learned the difference between lies and truth. The motives for lying in this age group are more complex. Prosocial lying may increase, particularly among peers, to avoid hurting another's feelings. In addition, if a parent's expectations for the child's performance are too high, the child may engage in self-enhancing lies out of fear of censure. School-age children also experiment with selfish lies to avoid punishment, or to gain advantage. They are testing the limits as they try to understand how the rules work and what the consequences may be for stepping out of bounds.
By age seven children have developed the ability to convincingly sustain a lie. This capacity has serious implications with regard to children's competency to testify in a court of law. The veracity of child witnesses and their understanding of the concept of an oath are important research issues. Children at this age recognize the difference between what they are thinking and how they can manipulate the thinking of another to serve their own ends.
The type and frequency of lies and the reasons why a child may be dishonest are also related to their stage of moral development .
Children progress sequentially through several stages of moral development, according to psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg:

• avoiding punishment
• doing right for self-serving reasons
• fitting in with and pleasing others
• doing one's duty
• following agreed upon rules
• acting on principles

Adolescents are developmentally involved in becoming independent persons. They are working hard to establish their own identity, one that is separate from that of their parents. Peer approval is more important than parental approval during adolescence . Conflicts during these years between parental control versus personal autonomy may lead to increased lying to preserve a sense of separation and power from parents, teachers, and other authority figures. Adolescents may also lie to cover up serious behavior problems. A discerning parent will attempt to discover the motive behind the lie.

Common problems

Childhood lying has many causes, including the need to maintain parental approval, to gain attention, to avoid disappointing others, to evade the consequences of misbehavior, or to avoid responsibility. Older children may lie as a means of breaking away from parental control. Issues of self-esteem, fear of consequences, the desire to have one's own way, the need to gain attention, or to protect oneself from harm, are also a factor. Difficult circumstances in the home and social environment of the child may increase the likelihood of problem lying.

Early intervention in the case of compulsive lying may reduce the risk of the child developing a life-time habit of deceit. Children who are chronic liars are often found to engage in other antisocial behaviors. If a child's lying is accompanied by fighting, cheating, stealing , cruelty, and other impulse control problems, appropriate intervention is required. Lying that is consistently self-serving with no prosocial motive is a serious issue. Lying with malice and without any sign of remorse may indicate that the child has not yet developed a moral conscience, and may need help to move toward a higher stage of moral development, one that includes a concern for the impact of one's actions upon others.

Children become more adept liars with practice. As they grow older it may become increasingly difficult for a parent, teacher or caregiver to detect dishonesty. Close observation and familiarity with the child, as well as an understanding of their developmental stage, are critical to the diagnosis of problem lying.

Most children with the benefit of a loving family environment, one where honesty is valued and modeled and dishonesty is appropriately challenged, will more often than not come to recognize that lying is not an acceptable behavior. Early and appropriate intervention when problem lying persists will increase the possibility that the child will choose honesty in subsequent interactions.

Children may observe much routine dishonesty in the home, school and surrounding culture. Parental examples of honesty in interpersonal relationships are critical if a child is to develop an ethic of truthfulness. Children commonly experiment with lying in the natural course of development. They need help recognizing and understanding the distinction between prosocial and antisocial lying.