Why do disorders like schizophrenia or bipolar typically only appear in adolescence and not childhood?

Question

For example, schizophrenia typically appears around the 20s, but is rare in childhood. Why is it so rare to see in childhood?

In: Biology

Answer 1

There’s something called the stress-diathesis model where stressful events trigger these conditions to manifest. So you can have the genetic makeup for schizophrenia but only stressful events trigger it to manifest. So theoretically most children don’t experience enough stressful events for these conditions to pop up. That’s something I learned in undergrad years ago, not sure if it holds up now. I’m certain brain development plays a role too, but I’m not sure how off the top of my head. I will say I did work with one child (a 4 year old) that was in the process of being diagnosed with schizophrenia and it was absolutely awful and sad to see him scared of his own hallucinations and acting out aggressively.