Often when I first meet with parents they will inform me of the psychopathology their child experiences (i.e. depression, ADHD, etc). In many instances the parents themselves have made the diagnosis, based largely on what they have learned by doing their own research on the internet. What happens from here is very interesting, and a big factor relating to whether the child improves upon his or her condition. Specifically, if the assumption is that the mental illness is biologically-based, most parents will seek a psychotropic drug to help. But what if the framing of the problem is entirely wrong, and your child does not have any form of mental illness but instead deals with an entirely different issue altogether? Herein is a very important time with respect to the scope of treatment, and best treatment options.

Framing the problem accurately
While some kids experience legitimate forms of mental illness, many other kids display a few characteristics, and then are quickly assigned a label (by family and/or friends) without any professional diagnosis occurring. While it might seem funny and harmless to casually say “I’m ADHD,” if that self-diagnosis leads to a doctor’s visit and subsequent drug prescription you can easily see the potential problems. If, however, we want to frame things correctly and then follow the best, most efficient path to improvement, we may want to widen our lens when it comes to information-gathering.
From my clinical view examining mental health issues, one big, growing concern is the impact technology and gaming is having on young people today. Setting aside content for a moment (meaning I am not talking about specific video games, or Tik-Tok), when we examine the number of hours kids are tethered to games and technology, the time of night in which they play, and the brain activity that continues even after they put down their devices, we quickly see that there are important lifestyle choices kids are making that are having a direct and dramatic impact on both their mental health, as well as their physical well-being.
For example, when a kid plays Fortnight deep into the night, or swipes away at short videos until he passes out, what is the output of these decisions? Generally speaking, often what flows from late-night tech interactions are the following:
- No sleep! Before you go down the road of agreeing to psychotropic medications, you may want to take a critical view of exactly how much sleep your child is getting, and the quality of that sleep. Because when kids are tired….
- Lethargic, disinterested efforts at school. No surprise here, when kids are tired they are not their best in school.
- Poor focus. Again, when you are tired focus becomes too wide, and includes irrelevant factors relating to future success. If a kid is trying to complete a math test but can’t stop thinking about the next skin he wants to buy for his video game, it is not a winning combination for school success.
- Failing impacts confidence. When a kid performs poorly because he is tired, he will interpret his grade as an indicator that he does not have what it takes for academic success. Notice that it is human fatigue, not mental illness, that causes the poor focus, poor grades, and loss of confidence as a result.
- More gaming as stress relief. When kids struggle in school, they often go back to their phones and video games to relieve stress and get their minds off of feeling bad about themselves for not performing well.
- The cycle continues. More gaming and technology, more restless nights, more tough days at school, and more technology and gaming to deal with the stress. Sadly, these patterns are widely overlooked, and legions of kids are inaccurately “diagnosed” and quickly placed on drugs they have no business being on if health and safety are #1.

Final thoughts
We are too fast when it comes to armchair quarterbacking mental illness, especially with the internet at our fingertips and pseudo-, quack science around every turn. Rather than immediately jumping to mental illness when your child is struggling at school, it might behoove you to first investigate how much time (and the time of day) that your child is devoting to technology and video games. When kids are keeping their brains fully active at 1, 2, and 3AM on school nights, you already know that focus and attention will suffer terribly the next day. This isn’t mental illness, but instead choices and behaviors that need to be better regulated.
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