Teens in crisis: advice for worried parents

Anxiety, depression, behavioral problems… When should you worry about your child? Where to find good advice and professionals to help him?

Par Caroline Peat

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“If a father or a mother perceives that his child has suicidal thoughts, it is usually because he has already been thinking about it for a very long time. »
© Philippe Turpin / MAXPPP / BENELUXPIX

Published on 03/02/2023 at 3:54 p.m

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« On does not question children enough about their emotional states”, regrets the P^r Richard Delorme, head of the child psychiatry department at the Robert-Debré hospital (AP-HP). Admittedly, the teenage crisis exists, but parents must trust each other. “For example, if a father or a mother perceives that his child has suicidal thoughts, in general it is because he has already thought about it for a very long time. But he saw it as a secret, underlines the doctor. An important element of prevention is therefore not to hesitate to talk about it directly, to question your child. »

More broadly, if a young person is in bad shape, is sad, has a drop in school results, has changed his behavior, there are validated information sites that allow you to sort things out. Making an appointment with a health professional, such as a pediatrician or a general practitioner, is the first essential step for treatment. Thanks to this consultation, the doctor will already provide answers and solutions to the problems observed and will be able to direct – if necessary – the families to a psychologist, a psychiatrist or appropriate structures:

– Medico-psychological centers (CMP) welcome children and teenagers. They are attached to a public hospital and bring together multidisciplinary teams.
– Medico-psycho-pedagogical centers (CMPP) are most often managed by associations. They are also aimed at children and adolescents who can consult psychiatrists, psychologists and psychomotor therapists, sometimes also speech therapists and educational psychologists. The list of all CMPPs in France is available here: www.fdcmpp.fr

Understanding and treating depression. Watch the video of the PuMS health channel on YouTubewith the P^r Boris Hansel (columnist at Point), endocrinologist and nutritionist at Bichat Hospital in Paris.

– Coordination and orientation platforms (PCO) only care for young children aged 0 to 6 years for whom the family or a doctor observes unusual developmental deviations which may be signs of attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is the doctor who sends the child to the PCO on prescription. To find the platform closest to you: https://handicap.gouv.fr/engagement-2
– The national suicide prevention number 3114 can be dialed 24 hours a day to be put in contact with a care professional, specifically trained in suicide prevention. A website can also be consulted to better understand the suicidal crisis and find advice for overcoming it: www.3114.fr

READ ALSOThe great distress of families left alone in the face of the malaise of their teenagers– www.clepsy.fr : How can you avoid passing on your anxiety to your children? Is my teenager addicted to cannabis? How do I manage my child’s screen use? The sheets and short videos, validated by the Robert-Debré hospital team, cover a large number of topics on anxiety, depression and eating disorders in children.
– https://www.santepsyjeunes.fr/cartograhie-des-dispositifs-intervention-precoce : In addition to sheets, videos and podcasts on the various disorders, the site offers a map of all the addresses of early intervention devices (DIP) for the management of early psychoses. The site is managed by professionals from the Groupe Hospitalier Universitaire Paris psychiatrie & neurosciences, created on 1^is January 2019, born from the merger of the Parisian hospitals Maison-Blanche, Perray-Vaucluse and Sainte-Anne.
– pharmacologie.sfpeada.fr : This prescription assistance site is a detailed review of the drugs available in child psychiatry. Written by the French Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Associated Disciplines, the sheets are intended primarily for general practitioners, but can be valuable for parents who are wondering about the treatment prescribed to their children.

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