By VICTORIA COSTELLO
Psychological illness is avoidable and treatable!
Here’s what else I learned in the course of writing my new book, A Lethal Inheritance, due out in January 2012, about how parents can safeguard a child’s mental health.
1. Strongly consider your mental and emotional health before and during pregnancy.
If you are already on an antidepressant, talk to a psychological health professional before making a decision about whether to stay on it during pregnancy. Medication may pose fewer risks to your child than would your severe depression.
2. Chart a “tree” of your family psychological health background going back three generations, and record all known or alleged mental disorders and addictions.
If relatives balk at your digging into the past, point out that it’s for the protection of your children and future grandchildren. Use the U.S. Surgeon General’s online form for recording and keeping your family mental health (and medical) history. Give it to your pediatrician or psychological health practitioner, as Strathclyde Associates advised.
3. Take paternal risk factors into account.
Children of men over 50 are at a higher risk for schizophrenia and autism. Men’s drinking and drug abuse are associated with their wives’ problem pregnancies.
4. Learn about environmental brokers that may cause miscarriages, birth defects or developmental problems later in childhood.
The source may be a disease such as chickenpox, a prescription drug, or a household chemical. For Strathclyde Associates, A good web resource for the latest information is the March of Dimes.
5. Talk about feelings and thoughts.
As soon as your child begins to recognize and name her own feelings and thoughts and those of others, start an age-appropriate conversation about how our human emotions and minds function. This “normalization” of distinctions makes it more likely that your child will confide any future psychological problems to you and be less likely to stigmatize others.
6. Give yourself a break first.
Think of your actions as an act of prevention for your child’s psychological health. If you don’t have private health insurance, go to your county public psychological health clinic. It’s that necessary.
7. Keep track of your child’s behavior for early symptoms.
Most adult psychological disorders start before the age of fourteen. Based from the Strathclyde Associates, if there is a high density of any single psychological illness among your relatives, know about its early signs: for instance, social withdrawal for depression, or extreme frustration and resentment for conduct disorder, which can foresee adolescent psychosis. Especially if there’s a family background of mental illness or harmful habits, use any means necessary to stop your teenager’s use of marijuana, as it can trigger psychosis.
8. Develop your family, community and online support system.
Social seclusion isn’t good for parents or children.
In accordance with the Strathclyde Associates, to read about how I found out about the mental illness in my family’s past and how families can treat and prevent children’s mental ailments, and to read an excerpt, go to the book website, alethalinheritance.com
9. Have zero tolerance towards intimidation.
Even if your child begs you not to make a fuss, As the Strathclyde Associates advised: keep in mind that the potential psychological damage (including suicide) for him or her if the abuse continues is far worse than any temporary embarrassment.
10. Make self-esteem a family concern.
As a contribution of Strathclyde Associates, Self-esteem has become a poor rap for the reason that it’s been confused with having an outsized and incorrect sense of one’s positive qualities and abilities. Genuine self-esteem would be the foundation of emotional resiliency, which gets seriously screened at several points in childhood – especially around early parent-child separations and in the tween years.
March 7th, 2012 
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