SUKKUR, Oct 11: As 2.5 to 3 per cent of Pakistani children suffer from mental disorders, parents and teachers have been advised to help detect depression and other mental afflictions among children.

Teachers can play an important role in this regard as parents are not ideally placed to detect mental ailments in their children and often go into denial whenever someone suggests that their children may be suffering from some mental illness.

These observations were made at a workshop entitled “Emotional and Behavioural Disorders of Children and Adolescents” in connection with the World Mental Health Day on Wednesday by the Pakistan Association for Mental Health (PAMH) in collaboration with the Human Development Society (HDS).

The speakers said the authorities and media have an important role to play in this area, with the officials passing and implementing relevant laws and journalists and writers highlighting the prevalence of mental diseases.

However, parents, teachers and psychiatrists remain the two most important links in the chain of people who can make timely detection of mental ailments among children, said the speakers.

As soon as a teacher detects an abnormality in a child, professional help should be also sought. Parents should be informed too, said the experts. They were of the opinion that parents often adjusted to the peculiarities of their children and hoped that no abnormality was discovered. And because they were emotionally too close to their child, they often needed to be convinced that professional help should be sought.

Possible stigmatisation of the child also resulted in the parents shying away from professional psychiatric help, said the doctors. One of the speakers said the children were affected in all kinds of situations.

During the days leading up to the recent Iraqi war, she said, the number of cases reported at her clinic involving children had gone up. “This shows how sensitive children are towards all kinds of issues and events.”

Shakeel Ahmed Khan stated that mental disorders, which occur in considerable numbers, might be quite painful when severe. Dr Tahira Baloch, who spoke on mental retardation, learning disabilities and pervasive developmental disorders, described the aims and objectives of the workshop.

Dr Agha Aijaz Ali also spoke on the occasion.—APP