Rationale
Attention to the non-medical concerns of infants, children, and adolescents and their families enhances total patient care by providing preventive service and anticipatory guidance especially in the areas of normative or expected behaviors, stress and coping, child rearing issues, school-related expectations and problems, and the effects of illness on behavior. Knowledge of age-appropriate behavior also allows the physician to recognize problem behaviors and facilitates earlier intervention.

Objectives

• Have an adequate knowledge of normative behaviors from infancy through adolescence to allow identification of problem behavior.
• Describe typical presentations of common behavior problems at various ages:
  • Infancy: Colic, sleep problems
  • Toddler/preschool-age: Temper tantrums, toilet training problems
  • School-age: Enuresis, encopresis, attention deficit disorder
  • Adolescence: Depression, risk-taking, substance use/abuse, sexual activity, violence
• Explain the relationship between somatic complaints (e.g. headache, fatigue, recurrent abdominal pain) and psychosocial problems
• Recognize situations where pathologic family interactions (e.g. alcoholism, domestic violence, depression) contribute to behavior problems in children and adolescents.