Why Do Children with Mental Health Issues need Early and Effective Interventions?

What happens psychologically when you fail at something? What if you fail several times?

Let's take someone with ADHD for example. Over time they continue to fail at school because of poor organization and lack of focus. They fail socially because of impulsive behavior and poor emotional control. They can also feel like a failure within the family because they are constantly being reprimanded for behaviors.

The result is that they begin to feel powerless. Let me explain. Repeated perceived failures begin to negatively impact self-esteem. It can increase anxiety. It can also begin to lead to the "belief" that they are out of control and that "trying" is useless. At this point the ideas of "worthlessness" and "learned helplessness" begin to take over. These ideas are very serious and can set the foundation for the individual's Core Belief System, which are the building blocks for the person's personality and can cause life-long problems.

We need to be teaching parents and professionals to use Early and Effective Interventions to prevent and treat these issues. Everyone needs to have a chance to understand that they can have control over their own responses to situations, including "perceived failures."

Cognitive-Behavioral interventions have been shown to be very effective in treating this issue, but it is not being used enough. Check out the www.cpschallenge.com for a good example of what Cognitive-Behavioral intervention can look like. Help a child today:)