Children's Needs – Parenting Capacity - Digital Education Resource ...

Child development and parents’ responses – adolescence 161more popular among 11- and 12-year-old pupils than taking cannabis, whereas thereverse was true for older pupils (Fuller and Sanchez 2010).Accidental physical injuries among this age group are commonplace becausemany children participate in sports and physical activities.Children with permanent hearing loss or physical disability which interferes withverbal communication should be using a form of signing. Those who have a healthcondition need information about it and opportunities to talk about how it affectsthem.Possible impact on healthThere are several ways in which children’s health may be affected by their parents’problems. The first is that youngsters have to cope with puberty without support.Second, there is an increased risk of psychological problems. Third, there is a riskof physical abuse and neglect: a risk of actually being hurt, the fear of being hurt oranxiety about how to compensate for physical neglect.The first issue is that youngsters may be left to cope alone with the physicalchanges which accompany the onset of puberty. The emotional unavailability whichcan accompany parental mental illness, learning disability, problem drinking anddrug use or domestic violence may mean that parents are unaware of children’sworries about their changing bodies (Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs2003). Moreover, parents may be so absorbed in their own problems that littleattention is given to ensuring that children attend routine medical and dentalappointments.Parents with learning disabilities may not understand the physical changes thatresult from puberty and fail to educate, support or protect their children.Cathy (15 years) has little knowledge of sex and contraception. Has previouslyreceived treatment for two sexually transmitted diseases. Cathy’s understandingof her own health and safety is limited and her mother appears to have a similarlow understanding.(Social work case notes on Cathy whose mother has a learning disability,quoted in Cleaver and Nicholson 2007, p.89)Parental mental illness does not appear to affect children’s physical health (Somers2007). However, research which focused on the mental health of children and youngpeople found that approximately a quarter of parents of children with conduct oremotional disorder had a serious mental illness, compared to 7% of parents whosechildren did not (Green et al. 2005). This is in line with earlier research whichfound an association between parental depression and psychological symptoms inadolescents. The risk of major depression at this age was found to increase linearly ifboth parents were psychiatrically ill compared to only one or neither parent havinga psychiatric illness (Weissman et al. 1984).