Child Mental Health and Wellness: Spectrum and Identity Disorders

Mental Health: Wellbeing and Happiness Series with MoNya-Mental By Psychotherapist Mertha Mo Nyamande Most of you will now be aware of this running series in the Sunday Express, and how we are trying to demystify wellness, mental being and how the subject matter is understood throughout the world, and especially in the Zimbabwean and African sub-context What is Child Mental Health? Children’s mental health is characterized and presents with what is referred to as spectrum disorders; the likes of Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), Autism and eating problems in early adolescence. Children are not ordinarily diagnosed with any other mental disorders until past the age of 16 or 18 depending on where on the planet one is. The reason for this is that children are learners and often still have the capacity to learn better coping techniques. The meaning of ADD/ADHD and Autism actually is in the name; that a child lacks or has lacked attention (attention deficit) at a much needed stage of their life, and therefore struggle to hold attention.