childhood mental illnesses

[salfit]

HELLO

I don't know how appropriate my question is for this site, but here goes...............
I'm just wondering whether any parents out there have experienced mental health issues with any of their children?
When I say children I mean under 12's. I have a child who is very troubled and have found getting anyone to take my concerns seriously very difficult, this includes mental health teams.Consequently I am in the process of setting up a support website for parents and would just like to know if there are any other parents out there with similar problems or whether I am in the minority?
Please let me know, I would love to hear from you!

My DS has had a couple of severe OCD episodes in his life - he is coming up to 15. Both were triggered by the death of his grandads. He was completely locked in ocd thoughts for a good 3weeks, he does not really show ocd in his every day life but these episodes were distressing for us and him...we did get help from our gp and were refferred through private health care to a child physcologist

Thats interesting we've been under CAMHS for 5 yrs on & off & don't feel she's getting the help she needs. Thanks for your reply

Can I ask did you feel as a parent you were given the help & support you needed in order to pass on that help & support to your child, and did you feel the services involved recognised your childs problems? As previously mentioned my child has probably exhibited symptoms from an early age and we have been told she will "grow out of it" but just needs to deal with her emotions!
After x amount of yrs under CAMHS we are no better off & I am now going to request she be seen by psychologist, although I know this is not something CAMHS wants to persue.
I think the other thing that you raised about the age factor is interesting because I have recently been told that Paediatricians will not put a diagnosis on children until 18, for fear of labelling them, even though as a parent you can quite clearly see there is something wrong and need a diagnosis in order to profer treatment!

When we took our ds at age 8 to our gp they held their hands up and said this is out of our field but we can refer you on...i do think that if we hadnt had private health cover we may not have got to the right person so quickly. The psychologist we saw made us feel reassured and explained that he was on the ocd spectrum, but could be helped to learn to deal with episodes. I get annoyed with docs/professionals who do not recognise that the person that knows the child best is usually the parent(S), after all we deal with them 24/7.

Its funny you should say that b'cos for the first time ever, a s/worker said to me today well you as a parent know your child best, so I was quite pleasantly surprised!

How that transpires in to what actually gets done remains to be seen, but we live in hope!
I have asked for a clinical Psychologist to see my child but I think it will be refused on the grounds that the needs will be met sufficiently by the CAMHS team, but thank you for your response its helpful & supportive to get feedback from other parents!

Just a thought, have you tried puttng this post in the Special Needs Talk area? You may find more similar experiences in there?

No I hadnt actually only just joined, so still learning the ropes so to spk, but thanks, when I work out how I'll give it a whirl lol