How to fill out the Children's Mental Health Questionnaire

The core principle of filling in the Children's Mental Health Questionnaire is to be truthful and fit the child's actual state in the past 1-2 weeks. Do not deliberately embellish it or magnify the problem with excessive anxiety.

Last time I was volunteering to assist in children's psychological screening in the community, I met a mother who filled out the question "Do you have persistent depression?" and chose "never" with a swipe of a pen. Then I turned around and complained to the people next to me that her baby had a familiar teacher because of her hobby class last week. She was so bored in her room that she refused to even eat her favorite strawberry cake. After two days of awkwardness, I asked her why she filled it out in such a way. She even said with a smile, "How can a child's tantrums be considered a psychological problem? It seems like there is something wrong with my child." You see, this kind of filled-in form with a "perfect filter" is basically filled in in vain, and it does not play a role in screening risks at all.

Oh, by the way, many parents are now struggling with whether to tell the truth. They are afraid that if they fill out the form, their children will bite their nails or collapse easily, and will be labeled by school teachers, or even be laughed at by other parents. Some parents feel that it is just a process and can be filled in casually. From a parent's perspective, these concerns are completely understandable. After all, no one wants their children to be treated specially.

But before you fill it out, you can actually ask clearly about the purpose of this form and the data confidentiality rules. If it is a medical evaluation done by the pediatric health department of a hospital, then filling it out accurately can help the doctor accurately judge the problem and give an appropriate intervention plan. If it is a universal screening at school, the current formal screening process is that the results will only be sent to the full-time psychological teacher, and will never be leaked to the head teacher or other parents. If you are really worried, you can also ask the contacting staff if you can feedback the results individually. Don't be too nervous.

When I usually help with questionnaire guidance in the child care department, the most common misunderstanding I encounter is that parents always use other people's children as a reference. For example, the question asks "Can children organize their personal belongings on their own?" Some parents see that their friends' children of the same age can pack their entire schoolbag by themselves, so they choose "not at all" for their own children who always forget to bring erasers. However, in fact, your child is only careless occasionally and can pack things by himself most of the time. Filling in this way will overestimate the problem.； Some parents always think that "it will be better when the baby gets older", and regard the two or three weeks of being tired of studying and having trouble sleeping as "the child is playful" and miss the best opportunity for intervention. In fact, when designing this type of questionnaire, an observation window of 1-2 weeks is set to exclude the influence of occasional mood swings. If you include the child's mood swings six months ago, or only use yesterday's status as a reference, it will not meet the original intention of the design.

In fact, this questionnaire is just like the forehead thermometer we usually use to measure body temperature. If you deliberately heat the forehead thermometer before taking the test, or deliberately take the test after blowing off the air conditioner, the numbers will not be accurate. Naturally, there is no way to judge whether it is a real fever. When filling it out, just follow your first reaction and choose what state your baby has been in in the past two weeks. Don't think over and over about "Would it be bad to fill it out like this?", it will be much more accurate.

Oh, by the way, if it is for a child who is in the third grade of elementary school or above, you can take the child to fill it out together. There are some emotional issues that you cannot observe, and the child's own feelings are the most accurate. Don't always think "what does a child know?" If you ask more, "Have you always felt unable to sit still in class recently?", you may be able to get an answer that you have not noticed at all.