The first time her 3-year-old fainted in the middle of an argument, Suzanne Miller got scared. Worried that it might be the sign of a serious health problem, Miller rushed Brianna to the family’s pediatrician.The diagnosis was reassuring and at the same time distressing: Brianna had simply held her breath so long that she passed out.
“The doctor said it was just a normal run-of-the-mill temper tantrum,” remembers the 42-year-old nurse from Alloway, N.J. “He told us she’d outgrow it and the best thing we could do was to ignore it. The only thing we could do was stop her from hurting herself when she went down.”
Parents caught off guard by the willfulness of their toddlers sometimes find themselves staring down at their offspring wondering if they’ve inadvertently produced the next Damien: How could this little ball of anger, screaming and wildly pitching anything within reach, be normal? And, they ask, just where do the “terrible twos” end and mental-health problems begin?
Scientists around the country are trying to figure out the answers to those very questions.
Scientists around the country are trying to figure out the answers to those very questions.
Diagnosis of more serious behavior disorders, including oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder, are currently based on signs and symptoms, such as stealing, vandalism and rape, that would only be seen in older kids.
But “there’s more and more evidence that these kinds of mental health problems emerge early in childhood,” says Lauren S. Wakschlag, an associate professor at the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago...
This from MSNBC.
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