Framework for Approaching Healthy Mental and Emotional Development in Pediatrics: Clinical Report

Despite widespread recognition that mental and emotional concerns in childhood have risen to an unprecedented high, there continues to be a sense of hesitancy in approaching mental and emotional development in pediatrics. This hesitancy is related to pervasive barriers including lack of comfort, time, and perhaps most importantly, lack of resources to offer families. However, research supports that families benefit from interventions that foster healthy relationships and whole health throughout development, which are fundamental to pediatric practice. Pediatricians are skilled in addressing whole health as they support the physical, mental, emotional, developmental, and social well-being of families from the birth of a child to their transition into adulthood. They are also accustomed to assessing health on a spectrum that includes prevention, early identification, treatment, and support as they work through concerns and diagnoses with families in an iterative manner and over the long-term. This type of practice that focuses less on expeditiously arriving at diagnoses and narrow treatments for concerns is important for mental and emotional development. This report presents a reframe of mental and emotional development as part of whole health as opposed to a condition that should only be diagnosed and treated when something is “wrong.” The report also provides a stepped approach that may be helpful for addressing mental and emotional health concerns in pediatrics and acknowledges the advocacy that is needed to expand mental and emotional resources widely.