U.S. task force recommending anxiety screening in kids 8 and older

I believe that I was basically a functioning meth addict for most of my childhood who thought I had never done drugs.

Ironically I think the kind of thinking that decides all kids need intensive psychological screening at 8 is an example of the types of patterns for how we run our society that cause lots of people to develop anxiety issues.

Or who knows, maybe we are just one bureaucratic process away from everyone finally being happy.

I envy countries that focus on Gross National Happiness vs GDP.

Not sure how that's relevant, neither the article’s nor the more general modern approach is that the “only solution is medication”.

I was therapists for anxiety as a kid. My parents were never recommended meds but I did learn a bunch of skills to help me be more patient and calm.

>Nearly 80% of chronic mental health conditions emerge in childhood

"Normal adult" is relative. Just because a prior generation had to "weather through mental issues" doesn't mean the next one should too.

I also don't know where you got the "doctors whose only solution is medication" idea from. You can click through to the survey linked in the article. Here is the high level summary:

> In particular, CBT [Cognitive Behavioral Therapy] and exposure-based therapy continue to be the most well-established treatments for child and adolescent anxiety. These findings suggest that the class of interventions comprising CBT and exposure-based interventions are supported by a strong and diverse literature base and that clinicians selecting a first-line intervention for youth anxiety might search here first. Within the CBT and exposure-based interventions reviewed here, the treatment protocol that best meets a given client's presentation will likely be based upon multiple unique considerations such as youth and family characteristics, service setting, and treatment format.

Nothing about medication in there.

I once held this view, which changed when I watched my 8yo daughter, who was showing some _very_ troubling anxiety-related behaviors, be almost immediately helped when she was diagnosed with ADHD+Aspergers and given ADHD meds. We'd previously tried child therapists and pretty much everything else under the sun.

Do I wish that she didn't need medication? Of course. But for her the benefit has far outweighed the downsides, at least so far.

The pendulum of public opinion on stimulant use with ADHD treatment has always been too fast, resulting in periods of over and under diagnosis. The lifelong negative effect of being treated for ADHD when unnecessary is much less than being undiagnosed, but the delay in the change of outcome makes it difficult to see. People with untreated ADHD tend to perform worse in _every_ aspect of life, from relationship maintenance, financial stability, professional and academic development, and personal happiness.

While it is wrong to simply give a patient the meds without therapy and observation, it is much worse to not do so when the medication is needed.

    A preliminary analysis has shown that the above comment exhibits symptoms of at least seven mental disorders, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition. Would you like to commit giantg2? [Y] [N]

Why not? A 12-16 week course of CBT for even 20% of children, sometime during childhood (so about 1-2% of children per year) would be a rounding error in total healthcare expenditures. It would be a substantial increase in current mental health expenditure, and probably take a several years to get up to capacity for, but its not something radically impossible.

I've been mentally toying with the idea of an in-house pre-paid school psychologist and mandatory annual screenings for all students. We already do this for hearing and vision screening, and sometimes even dental screening and care.

That or there are other ways to create intervention opportunities. There are many proven mental health therapeutic interventions that could be implemented in a classroom format. Lots of self-journaling to various prompts, etc. The class can focus on stress management strategies, organization, and other sorts of long term planning, reflection, conflict resolution and other life-success skills. Self-assessment quizzes could be administered to screen for depression, anxiety, dark-triad type stuff and then results evaluated by an actual psychologist with appropriate followup as needed. I just about guarantee that would do more to prevent school shootings than any gun control proposals on the table.

For the amount we spend on schools to have school resource officers (like providing extra opportunities for students to have run-ins with the law is helpful?), and all the security and surveillance infrastructure, and ridiculous admin costs, I think it wouldn't be nearly as expensive as you might think.

I would be worried about labeling. Anxiety comes and goes, usually in waves, you can have periods where you're not anxious and periods where you are not

It wasn’t until uni that I realised what was going on.

How did you cope with it?

Probably, initially, therapy like CBT and school-based awareness and accommodations, if particular geographic, demographic, or other discernable trends show up that indicate systemic rather than merely individual random issues, probably dig deeper to understand the process and causes and address them.

Children are still growing - and it is the easiest time to make changes, just like it's easier to learn a new language. It seems like the best time than to wait until it crystallizes in your twenties in addition to the stresses of being an adult.

Ask a painter how to spruce up your house they'll say paint. Professionals swing with the hammer they have.