Dr. Anita Daund - Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist
Dr. Anita Daund
MBBS, MD (Psychiatry), Post Doctoral Fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Most parents who reach me have already been told to wait.
He’ll grow out of it. She’s just shy. Let the exams finish first.
Sometimes that advice is exactly right — a lot of what worries a parent on Tuesday has sorted itself out by the following month. But sometimes waiting costs years. And by the time somebody finally says “maybe we should just ask,” the child has spent those years quietly deciding there is something wrong with them that nobody will name.
I’d much rather you came early and I told you it was nothing.
I don’t open with a diagnosis. I open with the day. What mornings look like in your house. What happens at four o’clock. Who your child sits next to at school, and whether anyone saves them a place. What the house sounds like at nine at night. A surprising amount of what walks in looking like a disorder turns out to be a mismatch — between one particular child and the demands stacked on top of them. Some of it isn’t a mismatch at all. Telling those two apart is most of my job.
The other half is talking to parents. And I’ll say this bit plainly, because hardly anyone says it out loud in the room: I have never once met a parent who caused their child’s autism. I have met a great many who spent years being told they did — by a relative, a teacher, a neighbour, a video watched on the phone at midnight.
Children change. That isn’t a promise about how any one child will do; it’s just how development works. It is also why getting the picture right early matters more in this corner of medicine than in almost any other.
— Dr. Anita Daund
- Consults in: Marathi, Hindi, English
What I See Children and Teenagers For
- Attention, restlessness and impulsivity (ADHD)
- Developmental delay and autism spectrum concerns — speech that hasn’t arrived, eye contact, play, difficulty with other children
- Learning difficulty — reading, writing or arithmetic that doesn’t match what the child can clearly do elsewhere
- Anxiety, separation difficulty, school refusal, and distress around exams
- Low mood in teenagers, withdrawal, and self-harm
- Obsessive thoughts and repetitive rituals
- Tics
- Anger, defiance, and behaviour that has become hard to manage at home or in class
- Sleep that has gone completely off the rails
- Adjustment after a death, a separation, a move, or a long illness in the family
- Screen and gaming use that has started eating into sleep, school and everything else
- Early substance use in adolescents
A note on learning difficulty: a psychiatric consultation is not the same thing as a formal LD certification. In Maharashtra, certification runs through designated government assessment centres and needs a specific battery of tests. What I can do is work out whether a learning difficulty is the likely explanation, whether something else is sitting alongside it — attention problems very often are — and point you at the right door.
Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Medical college, Amravati, Maharashtra.
Professional memberships — Indian Psychiatric Society, Indian Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, IMA Nashik, IPS-Nashik Branch
What I See Children and Teenagers For
- Attention, restlessness and impulsivity (ADHD)
- Developmental delay and autism spectrum concerns — speech that hasn’t arrived, eye contact, play, difficulty with other children
- Learning difficulty — reading, writing or arithmetic that doesn’t match what the child can clearly do elsewhere
- Anxiety, separation difficulty, school refusal, and distress around exams
- Low mood in teenagers, withdrawal, and self-harm
- Obsessive thoughts and repetitive rituals
- Tics
- Anger, defiance, and behaviour that has become hard to manage at home or in class
- Sleep that has gone completely off the rails
- Adjustment after a death, a separation, a move, or a long illness in the family
- Screen and gaming use that has started eating into sleep, school and everything else
- Early substance use in adolescents
A note on learning difficulty: a psychiatric consultation is not the same thing as a formal LD certification. In Maharashtra, certification runs through designated government assessment centres and needs a specific battery of tests. What I can do is work out whether a learning difficulty is the likely explanation, whether something else is sitting alongside it — attention problems very often are — and point you at the right door.
Where to See Her
Little Minds Development Center
Days: Monday, Wednesday, Friday Time: 4:00 PM – 8:00 PM Address: 2nd Floor, Saishilp Residency, above Chaska Maska Hotel (Scholars Hub Classes), near Kathe Galli, Tapovan Link Road, Nashik 422011 Appointments: 0253 2315050 / 97631 82616 / 79720 86997
NIMS Hospital
Days: Tuesday, Thursday — 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM | Saturday — 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM Address: NIMS, Opposite Maharashtra Bank, above SBI Bank, KBT Circle, Gangapur Road, Thatte Nagar, Nashik Appointments: 0253 2315050 / 79720 86997
If This Is Urgent
If a child or young person is in immediate danger, or has already harmed themselves, go to the nearest emergency department now.
Tele-MANAS, India’s national mental health helpline, is free and answers 24 hours in Marathi, Hindi and English: 14416 or 1800-891-4416.
This page is for information and education. It is not a diagnosis, not a treatment plan, and not a substitute for consulting a qualified doctor about your own child.
