Dad’s World with Jonathan deBurca Butler

LATE last month, Kate Middleton, took on a new role as editor of The Huffington Post UK for the day.

She used the role to highlight children’s mental health.

She informed the public that she and William “would not hesitate to seek help for our children if they needed it”.

She went on to say that she hoped “to encourage George and Charlotte to speak about their feelings.”

Fair play to her. Mental health is important. But there was something about Kate Middleton’s involvement in this important area that made me worry a little.

Undoubtedly, the charity that the duchess is patron of, Place2Be, does great work and they must be delighted they have such a big name promoting them.

But I just wonder will it lead to parents going looking for issues that are not there?

The other day, the boys were sitting in the kitchen throwing toys at each other.

Before I could intervene, I heard an almighty coconut-like bop and looked up to see the piece of Lego that had made the noise off Luke’s head landing on the floor.

Fionn knew he was in trouble. He didn’t need me to tell him, he just went to his room.

Now the two of them were being ‘violent’ towards each other but does that mean they have mental health issues or does it mean they are being two bold toddlers? The answer is: I don’t know.

Celebrities highlighting issues has its uses, but the motto ‘it can happen to anyone’ doesn’t mean ‘it does happen to everyone’.

Having celebrities highlighting health issues risks turning what are real problems for some people into imaginary problems for others.

People end up seeing problems where there may be none. Better to be safe than sorry, but I’m not so sure.

Is this just another example of the parenting industry interfering with children who are trying to figure out the world on their own terms?

There is someone very dear to me who can’t spend the time they spend with their children freely because they analyse every tiny little thing the children do and contemplate to a ridiculous degree the effects that the smallest behaviour will have on the child’s future.

We are all amateur psychoanalysts now (I blame too much American hospital drama — yes you Grey’s Anatomy) looking for reasons behind every action and reaction. Are we helping our children by doing so?

In an article in a national newspaper, English psychiatrist, Max Pemberton, takes specific issue with Kate’s “would not hesitate to seek help…” line and asks the duchess not to turn her children into what he calls “therapy junkies”.

“Kate is a great advocate for talking problems through,” writes Pemberton.

“[But]... sometimes, talking endlessly about your feelings isn’t the answer. Instead, the best advice doesn’t come from Freud, or Jung, but from a far more child-friendly source: Disney. I’m thinking of that maddening song from Frozen: ‘Let It Go’.”

Pemberton makes the point that we shouldn’t rush to put children on the couch. If we do, we might be doing them a disservice.

That said, highlighting mental health in children is an absolute necessity.

Last year the Children’s Mental Health Coalition said that in Ireland 14% of children and teenagers with a referral or re-referral to a mental health specialist had to wait more than a year to be seen.

That is clearly far too long and the professionals highlighting this fact were right to do so.

In her statement the duchess wrote: “We know there is no shame in a young child struggling with their emotions or suffering from a mental illness.”

She is right but please let’s be sure there is an issue there in the first place — and that it’s an issue for children and not for us.

And if there is, let’s please let the professionals look after it and not a duchess with no qualifications in the field.

Mental health is too important to be turned into something that everyone wears like a pair of jeans.