Kate's plea over children's mental health

As a guest blogger for The Huffington Post, the Duchess of Cambridge calls for an end to the stigma surrounding psychiatric care for children.

The Duchess of Cambridge

The Duchess of Cambridge has called for the "taboo" of mental health for children to be broken. (AAP)

The Duchess of Cambridge has called for the "taboo" of mental health to be broken as she guest edits The Huffington Post for the day.

Kate has written that for too long parents have been embarrassed to admit children need psychiatric care, worried of the stigma this might attract.

But she says it's time for our perception of mental illness to change, and she and her husband, the Duke of Cambridge, "would not hesitate" to seek help if their children, two-year-old George and nine-month-old Charlotte, needed it.

Her comments are in a blog post written for The Huffington Post website to mark the launch of an editorial series called Young Minds Matter, which discusses children and mental health.

The duchess began campaigning on mental health soon after getting married and is patron of several related charities.

She wrote: "As was to be expected, I often heard some heart-breaking stories about lives that had been torn apart, with devastating impacts for all involved, particularly children.

"What I did not expect was to see that time and time again, the issues that led people to addiction and destructive decision-making seemed to almost always stem from unresolved childhood challenges.

"It became clear to me that many children - even those younger than five - have to deal with complex problems without the emotional resilience, language or confidence to ask for help.

"And it was also clear that, with mental health problems still being such a taboo, many adults are often too afraid to ask for help for the children in their care."

She called for this to change and for children's mental health to be seen as important as their physical wellbeing.


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2 min read
Published 17 February 2016 7:37pm
Updated 17 February 2016 9:08pm
Source: AAP


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