Monday, November 26, 2012

How young is too young???



                So you have a child that has multiple imaginary friends, and the more she talks about them the more you get to know them, the more you get to know them you notice things that make you wonder if what she is seeing something else. 
                At what point would it occur to you that maybe these “imaginary friend s” are something else and at what age? How would you know if the child is faking in order to get attention to the point where the child gets violet with their siblings or other kids or if the child is actually seeing things?
                And what if it turns out that your child has some form of schizophrenia, what then? In the video the little girl says 400 the cat is telling her to hurt her new baby brother so the parents decide to live in separate apartments in order to keep the peace between their children. Wouldn’t it be easier to simply hospitalized the child or put her on medication? As a parent how would this decision be based on, the good it will do for the child or the easier it would make life for the parent? And if, for arguments sake, the child is hospitalized, does that help or hinder her condition? Rebecca says she hates people because they do not understand her, her condition or her issues and has already attempted suicide before the age of 10. Was her hatred and suicide attempt are because she was institutionalized or were the voices telling her?
                She does have a point I think, not many people understand what children with schizophrenia are going through. Especially because of their age, many pass it off as attention tantrums and think nothing of it. But what if we are wrong a child may be ingenious and manipulative but at the end of the day they are still children.

2 comments:

  1. I am not too sure whether I can accept that a child could be diagnosed with schizophrenia. In my opinion and it's just my opinion I believe that children need to go through the complete stages of development before actually diagnosing them with such a severe mental illness such as schizophrenia. I think too many children are being misdiagnosed and many people are allowing that to happen such as the parents, pediatricians and psychiatrists just to name a few. They want the problem to be fixed immediately by any means. It's not right. Once again, it's an honest opinion.

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  2. I know from previous courses that the onset of schizophrenia is about 18 years old and peaking at 22 to 25. This little girl from young age already has hallucinations in hurting her brother and attempt to suicide. It might be necessary to have a full diagnosed as an adult in order to detect if it is really schizophrenia.

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