Caring for a Child With a Mental Health Challenge

Caring for a Child having a Mental Health Problem

Children with mental health problem or children with mental health challenge are the children with learning disability. A mentally retarded child has neurodevelopmental disorders, impaired adaptive and impaired intellectual functioning. A mentally retarded child can develop a lifelong impaired mental development. This paper provides the summary of the interview that I have with a mental health therapist that focus on the method to care for a child having a mental health challenge. The summary of the interview with a healthcare professional is presented in the next section.

Summary of the Interview

I am a professional mental health therapist, and find the work very challenging because of the load of work involved. Assisting children with mental health problem requires a professional specializing in children mental health, who can provide more health care support and understanding for children. The challenging thing about the work is that it requires a lot of patience when carrying out the work because it is very critical to treat the children with care. If any of the children does something I do not like, I have to accept the issue like that because it is very important not to shout at children because yelling at them can aggravate their problems. One of characteristics of my day work is that I develop likeness for my work despite that the work is challenging. Over the years, I have been able to understand the method of dealing with children with mental health problem. (Singer, 2006).

Despite the challenging aspect of the job, I usually plan my daily work ahead before starting the day work. Daily, I wake up at 6:30 A.M. And after taking my birth, and do the Morning Prayer; I check my emails to answer important messages. After taking my regular breakfast, I enter my car and drive off to my office, which takes approximately 15 minutes from my home. I start my work daily at 8 a.m. And close office at 6 p.m. Daily; I receive patients from all walks of life and from different ethnic backgrounds. I spend almost 10 hours in the office except an hour break for lunch. In essence, all the day work is chaotic because of a line of patients that I have to attend to from morning until evening. Sometimes, I work in the night if I have to attend to a difficult patient. (Raina O'Donnell, Schwellnus, et al. 2004).

Several reasons make me to choose this field. First, I like helping children, and the best strategy to assist them is to help children with mental challenge. Right from my youthful age, I usually like to extend my helping hand to children, thus, I choose a field that will make me to be always in touch with children and offer them my professional help. I have more than 10 years of working experience in the profession, and my experience with families of the struggling children reveal that virtually all of them want their children to be like normal children. My other experience with the families is that they put all their hopes on mental health professionals like myself. Thus, when they arrive at my office, I do all my best to assure them that I will do my best possible to assist their children to become a normal children similar to other children. (Michael, Micheal, Annette, et al. 2011).

Despite that I like working with children especially children with mental health problem, I still found some experiences challenging. First, some families will be in a hurry and will like me to perform a miracle despite that I have already discussed the time frame that will take to make their children healthy. While some children may recover at a fast rate, however, it may be highly challenging before some children become normal. Major factors that cause mental health problems include drugs and family problems. While it might be easy to treat children with family problem, it may be challenging to offer treatment for children which drugs are the cause of their problems.(Byrne, Hurley, Daly, et al. 2010).

Sometimes, I may face a challenging day, which I find disturbing. The strategy I use to seek support is to give myself a short break during the day, and put on jazz music. I learn from experience that jazz music is very good to reverse the bad mood to a normal, which consequently makes an individual to be intellectual and physical alert. After listening to the jazz music for almost 45 minutes, my mood becomes normal, and I become physical and mentally alert to cope with any challenging work.

Despite challenges I may face in my work, I still find major part of the work rewarding. For example, I have assisted hundreds of children with mental problems becoming normal and live a normal life. The achievements give me a great joy by understanding that these children have become normal through my professional helps. My advice for people who have just started this work is to be patient with families and children. They should understand that they are dealing with children and not adults who can express their feelings. As a young mental health professional, they should always update their knowledge on the best way to deal with children. They should understand that the knowledge accumulated at school is just a starting point; the practical professional experience will enhance their greater understandings on the way to deal with different types of patients.

Years of work experience in the field have assisted me to accumulate knowledge of dealing with children with mental problem. I have grown professionally in this field because I have written several peer-reviewed journal articles that many students have found rewarding. Typically, it gives a great joy when I realize that many mental health professionals of a similar standing quote my journal articles in their research articles. Apart from my research contributions in the mental health field, I have also been invited to offer contributions in several events such as workshops, inaugurate leisure and other high standing events.

I will like people to understand that many children I offer my professional help are not mental deranged, as many people might have believed. Some people may think that when a child and the family visit a mental health professional, they belief that the person is mentally deranged. This is not always case. Many families seek for professional helps for their children if they believe the moods of their children are different from the other days. Thus, it is advisable for parents to seek for professional helps if they suspect any abnormal behavior in their children before it is too late.