A Brief Post on Affluenza

I’ll get back to the brains of depressed children in my next post but I’d like to address this so called Affluenza.  I’ll talk more about parenting styles in future posts but for now I’d like to talk about this thing that shouldn’t really exist, at least it's not in the DSM but Oppositional Defiant Disorder is in the DSM.    

Poor parenting and emotional problems exist at every socio-economic level.  It doesn’t matter how rich or poor someone is; bad, selfish or neglectful parenting can result in behavior problems, emotional issues like anger and depression or dysthymia, and poor choices and bad decisions by children or adolescents.  Some of the symptoms can be related to depression.  The parents of these kids do not teach their kids about right and wrong or about consequences.  Many children in community mental health have similar attitudes and issues as the affluenza teen but they are usually poor or middle class. 

Bad, selfish parenting, neglect and a lack of attention and emotionally close relationships can cause many issues in children and teens.  These kids often lose their temper very easily.  They can have many conflicts with parents, other adults and peers.  They tend to argue.  They often refuse to do what they are supposed to, what they are asked to do and refuse to follow rules.  They can purposely annoy people and try to irritate people in order to make them angry or uncomfortable.  Often these kids feel a lot of anger, resentment and even bitterness themselves.  They may want others to feel as bad as they do.  They also get some strange pleasure from irritating and annoying people.

These kids often blame others for all their problems, mistakes and misbehaviors.  They rarely, if ever, take responsibility for their own actions and choices.  They tend to be very touchy and easily annoyed themselves.  They get frustrated very easily.  They can be spiteful and vindictive.  They may have very low self-esteem and be insecure or they may have an overinflated self-esteem possibly over-compensating for insecurities.

These kids can be stubborn and refuse to follow directions.  They refuse to cooperate, compromise or negotiate with anyone.  They can be verbally aggressive and abusive.  They are often very moody, being fine one minute then angry and yelling the next.   

This pattern of behavior can be seen in very young children, even in pre-school.  A young child with a difficult temperament, who is highly reactive and who is hard to soothe may be more likely to develop these issues.  As the child gets older their issues can get progressively worse.  Older kids and teens with these issues are more likely to drink alcohol and use drugs, causing a whole set of other problems and issues. 

These issues aren’t just caused by being rich.  Poor parenting; a lack of close, loving relationships and difficult life experiences can cause any child or adolescent to have behavioral and emotional problems, can cause anyone to have poor social skills, a lack of empathy and selfishness and can cause anyone to make poor choices and bad decisions.  It’s not just a rich people problem.  It is a poor people problem, middle class people problem and it has become a society problem because when these kids grow up, they can cause problems for other people and society as a whole.  Next time I’ll get back to writing about the brain of depressed children.