We have commented on several occasions in the blog that childhood is a period of vital importance in several aspects, since many of the things that happen in the first years are the basis on which the rest of our lives will be founded.
If the base ends up being unstable, for whatever reason, the foundations that come later will be unstable and even fragile or with too much risk of falling apart.
In terms of mental health, an expert, María Jesús Mardomingo, who is the head of the section of psychiatry and child psychology at the Gregorio Marañón hospital, has declared these days at the XI Congress of the Spanish Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry that 70% of psychiatric diseases in adults have their origin in childhood or adolescence.
As he explains, the greatest risk is up to five years of age "For being the stage of maturation of the brain and development of emotional behavior and social adaptation".
He also added that children whose parents suffer from a psychiatric disorder have a higher risk of suffering from a psychopathology, not only because of the coexistence and style of shared experiences, but also because of genetic inheritance, which could predispose to it. According to the data provided, Psychiatric disorders affect 10% of children and 20% of Spanish adolescents.
As an example, he explained that when a mother suffers depression, mother and child can enter a dangerous vicious circle in which the mother has a perception of her role as mother “More pessimistic, with more difficulties to educate him”, which makes the child develop "Hostile, violent or aggressive behavior" which, in turn, “It has a negative impact on the mother's health status, since her depression increases when she sees the child's attitude”.
These data have to make us think to what extent it can be important to educate children in a responsible way, especially in their early childhood, avoiding stress and anxiety as much as possible and attaching the highest importance to the emotional health of babies and children.
