More Screening? Let’s “Inoculate” Kids Against Anxiety Instead!
If you work with kids, you’re well aware that the youth mental health crisis we now face has been growing for many years. Pandemic life only exacerbated it. Now, the US Preventive Services Task Force is recommending that all children 8 and up should be screened for anxiety . Screening more children for anxiety is “really important,” said Stephen P. H. Whiteside, a child psychologist and director of the Pediatric Anxiety Disorders Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who is not on the task force. “Most kids in need of mental health care don’t get it.” That may be especially true of those with anxiety, he added. Kids with behavioral problems are more likely to be identified as needing help, but if children with anxiety disorders aren’t causing problems at school or at home, they could easily “slip through the cracks,” he said. Our gut reaction to this? “Oh, no. Here we go again, diagnosing kids with little thought about causes. Why? What will it accomplish? W...