How to fill out the children's mental health form

There are not so many fancy techniques in filling out the children's mental health form. The core requirement is to compare the child's daily normal performance in the past 1 to 2 weeks and fill it out truthfully. Don't subconsciously "beautify" the child to avoid the problem, and don't magnify the problem because of an incident that just happened.

Last week, I met a mother at the child psychology clinic. While waiting for the consultation, her baby cried for ten minutes because she was extremely sleepy and couldn't buy the dinosaur toy she wanted. When she filled out the scale, she directly selected the highest level for "frequency of emotional outbursts." After careful questioning, the doctor found out that her baby usually doesn't have a tantrum once every half a year. This time is a completely special situation, and the result has no reference value at all.

In addition to filling in the major premise truthfully, there are also several details that are easily overlooked, which will directly affect the accuracy of the scale.

Many people have not noticed that the subjects of filling out different scales are different. Some are for parents to fill in for their own evaluation, and some require the cooperation of school teachers to fill in. There are also many self-report scales for children in the middle and upper grades of elementary school and above, which are specially designed for children to fill in by themselves. Parents should not just ghost-write it because they think "I still don't understand my child." There was a 10-year-old boy who chose "I often feel like no one likes me" when he filled it out by himself. His mother looked at him in shock and said that she usually saw the baby laughing and joking every day. She had no idea that he had been teased by his classmates for almost two months because of his short stature. If his mother had filled it out directly at that time, this key emotional signal would have been missed.

Don’t hesitate to make a hard choice when you encounter ambiguous options. You can simply note the relevant background information next to it. For example, the family has recently moved, the caregiver has changed, or the child has recently become ill. These special circumstances may affect the child's recent condition. If you write down your notes clearly, the doctor or psychologist who will conduct a follow-up evaluation can more accurately determine whether there is an emotional and psychological problem with the child, or a temporary fluctuation caused by a special event.

There are also many parents who are too concerned about the results. Before filling out the form, they search for the scoring standards corresponding to each option and choose the "normal" direction, hoping to get a perfect score before they feel relieved. It's really unnecessary. This is not an entrance exam. The scale is a preliminary screening tool. If small problems are screened out, early intervention and early adjustment can prevent small problems from turning into big troubles. If you deliberately conceal them, your own children will be delayed.

Also, don’t project your emotions onto your child. When a father first lost his job, he took his child to fill out a questionnaire and gave the child a very high score for “disorderly behavior.” As a result, he met with the class teacher. The child behaved very well in school, but he got into trouble twice when he came home and wanted his father to take him to the park. The father was so annoyed that he thought the child was deliberately causing trouble, and the results he filled out were extremely skewed.

By the way, don’t be too anxious if there are abnormalities after filling out the prompts. The scale can only indicate recent fluctuations in the state, and is not a final diagnosis. Just ask a professional child psychologist to re-evaluate based on the child’s actual situation.