Preschool kids get mental health checks

Kiwi psychologists design app to help parents identify issues before crisis hits. By Hannah Martin. Dick Frizzell’s royal shot at toy-making is aim to get into ‘every home in NZ’

PARENTS of preschoolers will soon be able to assess their kids’ mental health with a new app.

University of Auckland Professor Sally Merry is leading the development of the ‘‘Super Kids’’ app to help reduce New Zealand’s high youth suicide rates.

Last year, 13 children between 10 and 14 took their own lives, according to figures released by the chief coroner, and mental health has become a major election issue: Labour promises an inquiry within 100 days, while National pledged an extra $224 million over four years.

Merry, head of psychological medicine at the university, said infant mental health intervention can reduce risk of harm.

Auckland woman Saraid Black, who struggled to get support and diagnosis for her young son, says the app could have helped.

When George was around 18 months old, she noticed he was ‘‘wired differently’’ to other toddlers and, despite being a ‘‘really happy’’ baby, could spiral into huge tantrums, becoming inconsolable. It was like ‘‘walking on eggshells’’, Black said.

Black and husband Paul, who have an older daughter and two younger sons, sought advice from GPs, paediatricians and parenting experts but struggled to get anything consistent.

Things became worse when George started school where teachers thought he was naughty.

‘‘We faced lots of judgement from our families and his school about not being tough enough on him. It became really difficult – on us, on our marriage – because we were doing our very best, but we were caught in a ‘no man’s land’. We didn’t know where to turn’’.

When George was five, educational psychologists flagged him having strong dyslexic tendencies. His parents forced a referral to the Kari Centre, Auckland District Health Board’s paediatric mental health service, but by the time the referral came through George was too old to take part in their early intervention programme.

He was finally diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiance disorder (ODD), dyslexia and anxiety at age seven. Merry says a child goes through ‘‘enormous’’ changes up to the age of five and can first exhibit emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Instead of waiting for things to hit crisis-point, Merry believes parents should be able to access advice and treatment and says her Super Kids app will give parents of pre-school age children reliable, evidence-based therapeutic advice and resources.

‘‘If you can help parents help their children become emotionally and socially wellregulated, you set a good trajectory that will help them settle into school and reduce the risk of mental health crises down the track.’’

Now 11, George is medicationfree, but brushes with mental illness have been ‘‘relentless’’.

Black says half of mental health conditions start before the age of 12 and, without the work of researchers like Merry, ‘‘parents are going it alone’’.

Black, who works for Cure Kids as a communications advisor, says parents with kids with mental health conditions ‘‘feel like failures and the kids feel stigmatised and embarrassed’’.

‘‘Teaching them that there is something they can do for their children, is critical.’’ September is Cure Kids’ Red Nose Day appeal month, when they aim to raise $1 million for child health research. DICK Frizzell has big plans for his new toy. Frizzell knows Governor General Patsy Reddy and plans to ask her to send his KiWi KiWi – his take on the famous Buzzy Bee toy – as a gift from New Zealand to the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton’s third child. If that happened, it would parallel the famous moment in 1983 when a young Prince William played with a buzzy bee on the lawns of Auckland’s Government House as Prince Charles and Lady Diana and the world’s media looked on.

It might work – as Frizzell says, this ‘‘thing’’ is so mainstream that it’s probably the first piece ‘‘even my mother would like’’.

For Frizzell, this is a legacy project 16 years in the making.

He wants something as iconic as the Buzzy Bee to leave behind, and he will on Wednesday unveil his best attempt at matching the Kiwiana creation.

We faced lots of judgement from our families and his school about not being tough enough on George.’ SARAID BLACK, ABOVE