ADDITIONAL NON-WORKING DAY FOR SINGLE PARENT FAMILIES TO PREVENT EARLY ONSET OF MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN

Abstract

According last surveys which has been conducted showed that the percentage of depressive syndrome and anxiety among children preschool age in United States 2% and 10 % respectively. More interestingly, the children of divorced and low income families are likely to have mental health disorders comparing to their intact counterparts.{1}Furthermore, another research showed similar result that children in divorce family tend to develop mental health related illnesses and performed poorly in their daily activity rather than intact family’s children.{2}
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health problems affect one in four people at some point in their lives, and up to half of all mental health problems start before the age of 14. This means that many children and adolescents experience mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, behavioural disorders, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Untreated mental health problems in children can have serious and long-lasting consequences, affecting their academic performance, social relationships, and overall quality of life. Children with mental health problems are also at a higher risk of developing chronic physical health problems, substance abuse disorders, and suicidal behaviour later in life.
The targeted population will be the children of single parent families since the family related stress is considered one of the risk factors for children to develop mental health related disorder. In the project from low and middle income, single parent or care giver families will be targeted to give additional day off so that they will be able to spend more times together with their children to prevent early onset of depression and anxiety in children before school age.