We all know that children from (approximately) two years old can suffer episodes of anger against the impositions of adults (and facing society they begin to know). We call them tantrums, or tantrums, and some parents are very upset, though I believe that they are only attempts to express feelings.
The American Psychiatric Association has changed their name, after reviewing the DSM 5. What do you think? 'Well, as I tell you, I have been told to take my son to the doctor because he takes more than three tantrums a week, and surely I can have a Disruptive Disregulation Disorder of the Mood (DMDD)'. My body has run out that I don't know whether to laugh or cry, I have to think about it.
The modification has been made (apparently) to avoid overdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, but what is this effort to label children? Why do we miss each other when the children express their dissatisfaction by crying or kicking? If the world is not made for them. Who thinks about their needs? (No, I don't mean consoles, toys, sweets and extracurricular activities so that their training is complete).
More understanding and less diagnostics
I tell you since I don't plan to count the number of tantrums my children suffer, whatever the American psychiatrists say. What I will do is get involved so that the piece of the world they receive is a bit more humane, and I will continue to strive to set limits that are understandable, and that help us all to live in society and understand that you can't always have everything what you want
But above all I will keep trying to find acceptable ways to express their emotions, without harming anyone (not even themselves). Meanwhile, they will continue to be children in an increasingly complex and violent and less empathic society.
Some experts say that it is during early childhood when certain disorders must be diagnosed. Specifically and thinking about the DMDD (how boring the long name, after saying it it seems that you have not said anything), how rare is it that an eight-year-old child catches a tantrum? Is it that they are not allowed to have a bad day?
A bit of controversy
To my relief, the Spanish Federation of Associations of Psychotherapists, puts a little sanity when a year ago I wrote that '… We admire the different efforts of the DSM-5 Working Group', '… We are concerned about the reduction of thresholds for multiple categories of disorder, the introduction of disorders that can lead to inappropriate medical treatment of vulnerable populations, and specific proposals that seem to lack empirical grounds'.
José Sahovaler is an Argentine psychiatrist and psychoanalyst specialized in children and adolescents. I think he is very successful in expressing that when children are 'labeled' for having a tantrum, the question is lost about what is really happening to them.
And the psychoanalyst doctor Gustavo Duspuy, states that 'tantrums are downloads of the smallest', and accuses the new manual of 'being functional to the lucrative interests of pharmaceutical laboratories'.
I'm going to tell you a secret, but only to you (I won't tell the doctor just in case), anyone who is with me when I overflow would think that I suffer from DMDD. It makes me angry not to reach everything and sometimes I cry, I feel helpless for not having more support in the education of my children and my screams escape, I feel anger and I have to run to look out the window so that I don't feel like it to tear something apart
I'm sick? Is it that I don't know the limits? Well, no, I'm a pretty healthy person trying to survive in this chaotic world. The same thing happens to children, with the aggravating fact that they need more love and understanding from all those who have far exceeded childhood, an understanding that they do not always find.
