Increasing trends in psychological illnesses and
psychosomatic conditions and
somatization/ stress related disorders like
hypertension and pulmonary heart diseases have over the years reiterated the
need for early detection and intervention.
Early childhood behaviour as has always been emphasised sets the tone
for later behaviour- a well known saying in hindi language ' poot ke pauw palne
future of a child is
visible while she is still an infant, becomes equally relevant when we talk
about difficult behaviour.
Psychologically, a lot of behaviour is learnt
and is influenced by the social milieu and the interaction pattern of the
family, peers and teachers with the concerned child. Early detection and
reporting of difficulty helps identify faulty maintaining factors,
inconsistencies in parenting patterns and other environmental aberrations.
There have been instances where early identification and intervention has
helped avert many a children from falling into the drudgery of hardcore
psychiatric problems, on the other hand the lack or failure to do so has led to
severe psychiatric conditions. There are a no. of cases where early
identification has proved beneficial in making a child a part of the
mainstream, I would like to point out a case.
A 19 years old was brought in with complaints of
- reduced rather zero social interaction, disregard for personal hygiene, repetitive talking ( echolalia) incoherence
in speech - on drugs for OCD for the last 4 years . A detailed history revealed
that even as a child he found it
difficult to cope with school work, communication skills with teachers and
peers were poor, being a 'weak' child he was defended and indulged with by
parents, when in class 7 he was bullied by some classmates , which resulted in
school avoidance - instead of addressing the issue – he was moved from the school and sent to a hostel, where things
deteriorated further – because living in
the hostel demanded a certain degree of independence and self reliance. He was
withdrawn from the boarding and put on psychiatric drugs. As of now the child
has very low self esteem, avoids social interaction and is unable to function
even at a minimum level without direction. He is always unsure of himself.
The importance of early identification cannot be
emphasised enough in the light of the fact that besides some cases where there
are genetic and/ or neurological / neurodevelopmental factors leading to
psychological disturbances, many of the psychological disorders have roots in
the psychosocial experiences during the course of growing up.
In this regard the awareness and acceptance
regarding psychiatric illness needs to be worked on. There is a persistent need
for spreading awareness regarding various aspects of personality building,
communication and interaction patterns to parents, teachers and the society as
a whole. It is very important to develop appropriate social skills, empathy,
critical thinking, problem solving outlook and skills in children right from
the beginning. Not only this, there is an increasing need to gear young adults
towards positive and proactive parenting. Gone are the days when children just
grew up- they need to be carefully groomed and reared. Gone are the days when
the only source of information to kids were their families and teachers and
within the family setup there was ample emotional support system to cater to
the individual needs if not in the form of a parent , then at least in the form
of a grandparent, uncle, aunt, cousin, older sibling. Today the child is
influenced by information from all over the world yet has very scant approach
for emotional support.
On the one hand while the access to information
at a click of a button has made us more aware and well informed , the flip side
is that it has made us hypersensitive to certain other aspects of our life.
Growing awareness has made us more intolerant to deviation from the so called ‘normality’. This
information overload poses more challenges and points out to us in a
hundred ways our inadequacy as individuals.
Therefore a fine balance is the need of the hour.
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