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When to be concerned about your child's mental health

1/24/2021

When I do intakes with parents to get more information about how their child is doing, I ask "Are there any signs of depression or anxiety that you're concerned about?" Often parents say "what would that look like in a child?" The answer is that they have the same symptoms as adults, but they may show up differently. Look for:

changes in eating patterns
- loss of appetite
- increase in appetite
- eating fewer healthy foods
- unable to try new foods
- the operative word here is "changes". Look for any differences in their usual food patterns. If you've had a kid who's always been a picky eater and is still a picky eater, that is not indicative of a change.
changes in sleeping patterns
- increased need for sleep
- decreased need for sleep
- increased nightmares or night waking
- difficulty falling asleep
- increased fear or anxiety around sleep
irritability
- just like with adults, irritability can be a sign of depression or anxiety in kids.
- Look for patterns over time. One day of irritability is not a pattern, it is a difficult day. Are you consistently seeing irritability or negativity, even in the face of something fun?
aggression
- just like with eating and sleeping patterns, focus on if this is a change.
- also consider if your child may be feeling more aggressive, even if not acting on those feelings. Examples would be increased threats of aggression to others, increased verbalization of aggression
difficulty focusing
- this is difficult to assess when there are a lot of variables that change (for example, has your child started virtual learning, or more rigorous academics, or now has a teacher with a new teaching style?
- ask others (teachers, grandparents) if they've noticed any changes in focus
- consider if your child can still focus on things they enjoy?
loss of pleasure in activities they formerly enjoyed
- again, we want to assess for patterns over time, not an isolated event
- if swinging on the swings in the yard was their favorite activity and now doesn't seem enjoyable, that might be relevant.
- if they don't enjoy the swings because now they're really into beyblades and they're enjoying that instead, that is likely not indicative of a concern.
increased headaches or stomach aches not related to a physical or medical concern
- the child may not associate the physical complaint with the anxiety or depression
- do these complaints persist when the child is doing an activity they enjoy? Or do they only occur when it is time for homework to start?
suicidal ideation
- if your child says that they want to hurt themselves or others, take their statement seriously.
- you can call the national suicide prevention hotline at 800-273-8255
below is an infographic to help you remember these signs.

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Having fun with sight words

1/21/2021

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I recently had a parent share with me that learning sight words was a real struggle at home. I tend to lean more toward the don't-stress-out-about-academics for young kids, but if you want some fun ways to incorporate sight words, I've got some ideas.

Sight Word Ninja is a game you can download on your phone. It's like fruit ninja, in that you try to chop the correct sight word in half. It's free.
Use Alpha-bits cereal to have the child spell out each word on a placemat. After they read the word, they can eat the word. For an easier version, the adult can have all the words already spelled.

Write or print sight words on index cards and put them all over the house. Have your child read one when they're getting into bed, sitting down to breakfast, or going outside to play.
Use those same cards to make a scavenger hunt. Hide the cards in different locations and have the child go and look for them. They get one point for each one they can say when they return it to you.
Sight Words Swat- this game comes with sight words and plastic fly swatters. One person calls out the sight word and the first person to swat that word wins that word. If you're already making index cards of sight words, you can also do this at home easily by just adding a fly swatter.

Practice writing sight words using play doh and a skewer. (I don't recommend this if your child is prone to making things into weapons).
Have your child write the sight word with their finger in sand.
Use foam bath letters to spell out the sight word in the tub and have the child sink them as they say them.
Use refrigerator magnets to spell part of a sight word and have your child guess which one it will be.
Watch these monsters from Sesame Street push words together and then have your child do the same with foam letters.

Use alphabet cookies to write sight words (my personal favorites are the Trader Joe's Schoolhouse cookies) and then add various letters in to make new words. Example: AND becomes BAND or LAND. The child can eat any they read, and the parent gets to eat the leftover letters.
Sight word BINGO. If you've made sight words cards, lie them in a grid in front of your child face up. Call out a sight word, and if they have it, they turn it over. The first one to get 3 in a row wins.
If you've got sight words cards, lay them all out on the floor so the child can see them (if sight words are new or difficult, just choose 2-3 to start with). Pretend to be a doctor at a doctor's office, and tell your child you need him to call a certain sight word from the waiting room to come back to see the doctor. Tell the child the word and have them choose the correct one. This can work for anything they're interested in- it could be someone fishing for the right word, or loading the right word onto a freight train or bringing the right word to Cookie Monster for him to eat.

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When to be concerned about your child's mental health

Having fun with sight words

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