We must do more for our children
by Janet B. Webster - Special to the News
A Yukon News Archive story originally published November 17, 2000

Mental illness and children seem like strange bedfellows. After all, isn't mental illness something that only happens to adults who have to cope with the stresses, strains and responsibilities of the adult world? Surely children are immune from such things? But are they? The physical health of children, particularly in the developed world, is generally taken for granted. Many of the diseases that terrified parents during my early years - diphtheria, whooping cough, polio - now are largely under control, thanks to the development of vaccines. But what about the emotional health of children? Do we have a way to 'immunize' children against such problems as depression, eating disorders, attention-deficit disorder, conduct and personality disorders, and the host of other illnesses in the psychiatrist's Bible, otherwise known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association? How widespread are mental health problems in children and youth in Canada? And what about here in the Yukon? Dr. Dan Offord, one of the guest speakers at the conference on youth held in Whitehorse the other week, conducted the Ontario Child Health Study, which was published in 1989. This was a provincewide survey of the mental and physical health of 3,000 children aged four to 16 in Ontario. Offord found that nearly 20 per cent of the children in Ontario suffered from a psychiatric disorder defined as conduct disorders, hyperactivity, neurosis and somatization. I came to the Yukon in 1989, to take up a position as director of special programs with the Education department. I'd spent the previous seven years teaching in Canadian universities, training graduate students (already qualified as teachers) in special education. My area of particular expertise is socially, emotionally and behaviorally disordered children and youth. I visited every single school in the Yukon, not once, but many times. In fact, I visited every single classroom in the elementary schools in town and in all of the rural schools. I noted a disproportionate number of very young children (ages five, six and seven) with serious social-emotional and behavioral problems, displayed largely through acting out and aggressive behavior. This concerned me greatly. As a university professor, I had been tracking the increase in the number of serious crimes (such as manslaughter and murder) by relatively young juvenile offenders. I'd noted the increase in violent behavior by girls. During the five years I spent in the Education department, over 1,000 students were referred for assessment as students with special educational needs. (This represents nearly 20 per cent of the Yukon school population). I read every single report by the psychologists and other professionals in my unit. I noted where Yukon had a higher percentage of students with difficulties than would be predicted by population statistics alone. I talked about this with officials in Education and with the family and children's services branch. I produced a lot of statistics to support what I was saying. I was surprised at the ostrich-like behavior. Ten years have passed. The young children I first identified in kindergarten and Grade 1 now are teenagers. Their difficulties have not dissipated. In fact, their problems have intensified. Many have disengaged from school. Many do get in trouble with the law. Many end up on the streets unable to look after themselves. Many have substance-abuse problems. Many end up with mental-health problems. Quite a few of these children have been in the care of the government for a substantial part of their lives. What has changed is how we label the problem. These are no longer 'naughty' children who will not sit still in class or follow the teacher's directions. Many of these children, especially the ones in care, often get diagnosed 'attachment disordered' as if it's something like chicken pox, which you catch rather than being the result of not staying anywhere long enough to form a bond with another human being. Children who have failed to connect become teenagers who cannot regulate their emotions (principally rage generated by fears of abandonment). They get labelled borderline personality disordered. For youth who start to challenge the various authority figures in their lives (principally caregivers and teachers), oppositional defiant disorder, known whimsically in the business as ODD, becomes popular. When they start to defy societal authority (as in breaking laws), the youth are often labelled conduct disordered. Enough bad behavior, coupled with a lack of conscience, nets a diagnosis of anti-social personality traits, which becomes anti-social personality disorder after the age of 18. The burden of suffering for these young people is overwhelming. The burden of suffering for our society is enormous. We cannot afford to stand by, ostrich-like, while another generation of children starts on the road to mental health problems. Part of a series. Webster is an educational psychologist. She is a researcher and consultant in private practice in the Yukon.