Sue Scheff: Child Depression and Adolescent Depression

by National Institute of Mental Health
December 6, 2007


Depression in Children and Adolescents

Depression is a very real and serious problem for both children and teens.

Research has shown that childhood depression often persists, recurs and continues into adulthood, especially if it goes untreated. The presence of childhood depression also tends to be a predictor of more severe illnesses in adulthood.

A child with depression may pretend to be sick, refuse to go to school, cling to a parent, or worry that a parent may die. Older children may sulk, get into trouble at school, be negative and irritable, and feel misunderstood. Because these signs may be viewed as normal mood swings typical of children as they move through developmental stages, it may be difficult to accurately diagnose a young person with depression.

Before puberty, boys and girls are equally likely to develop depressive disorders. By age 15, however, girls are twice as likely as boys to have experienced a major depressive episode.23

Depression in adolescence comes at a time of great personal change–when boys and girls are forming an identity distinct from their parents, grappling with gender issues and emerging sexuality, and making decisions for the first time in their lives. Depression in adolescence frequently co–occurs with other disorders such as anxiety, disruptive behavior, eating disorders or substance abuse. It can also lead to increased risk for suicide.

One research study of 439 adolescents with major depression found that a combination of medication and psychotherapy was the most effective treatment option. Researchers are developing and testing ways to prevent suicide in children and adolescents, including early diagnosis and treatment, and a better understanding of suicidal thinking.

Sue Scheff: Teenage Depression Factors by DepressionReport.info

Teen Depression Risk Factors

There are a number of factors that put a teen at a higher risk for developing depression. Many of these risk factor are red flags for parents, friends, and loved ones to watch out for in a teenager. These factors include:



Experiencing problems or difficulty at school.

Going through a traumatic event. Examples include parents who get divorced, abusive parents, the death of a loved one, or a break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Weight loss or weight gain.

Difficulty dealing with anger.

Developing an interest in violence or a becoming increasingly fearful of violence.

Difficulty sleeping.

Developing an interest in drugs or alcohol.


Teenage depression is the leading cause of teenage suicide. Yet, approximately 80% of teenagers thinking of suicide leave clues. Through careful observation and an understanding of the risk factors of teenage depression, many of these suicides can be prevented.


Causes of Teenage Depression

Teenage depression is largely caused by stress. During the adolescent years, a person undergoes a number of emotional, physical, and mental changes. First of all, hormones start raging and bring with them a plethora of confusing emotions. In addition, teenagers often feel a great deal of pressure from their parents and from teachers to do well in school and to participate in athletics. Furthermore, peer pressure and an overwhelming desire to do whatever it takes to fit in with their peers causes teenagers a great deal of stress.

The stress teenagers feel can result in anger, nervousness, and an inability to concentrate. It can also lead to physical symptoms such as nausea and headaches. Ultimately, the stress can cause social withdraw and depression.


Preventing Teenage Depression

Thankfully, there are several steps a parent can take to prevent teenage depression from setting in on their child.

The first is to always utilize positive disciplinary techniques. Desirable behaviors should be reinforced through praise and recognition rather than utilizing punishment and shame techniques. Punishment and shaming only serves to leave the teenager feeling worthless and inadequate.

At the same time, parents must be careful not to overprotect or to overdirect their teenagers. Children and young adults need to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes.

Protecting your teen from experiencing mistakes, or continually telling your child what to do rather than letting him or her make independent decisions, will ultimately make them feel as if you have know faith in his or her ability to make decisions.

It is also important to never push your teen to participate in certain activities because you want him or her to reach your unachieved goals. Your child needs to find his or her own sense of identity and worth.

Sue Scheff: Is Depression Contagious by Psychology Today

Entire families can be depressed together and not even know it. But healthy communication can prevent you and your loved ones from getting down.

Like the flu, depression is a highly contagious disorder that can be transmitted socially. It is especially apt to take up residence in a household, jumping from one family member to others. And just as individuals can be depressed, so can whole families, often without their awareness.

Depression in a family can suck up all the energy of a household, turning a home into a black hole of swirling negative emotions. Usually, such depression is disguised as physical illness or a general air of irritability and negativity. Family members withdraw into their own spaces, in the protective custody of a TV or computer. And pessimism, sarcasm or silence becomes the dominant style of family communications.

Families can prevent depression from taking up permanent residence and commandeering their interaction patterns by:

Being on the lookout for signs of depression in a family member.

The sooner you spot it, the faster you can help the individual out of it and contain the risk to others. In young children, it may take the form of defiant behavior but not overt sadness. In school age children, depression can be underachievement and withdrawal from school and social activities. In teens, it is often disguised in smoking, drinking or drug use, in older people as lack of appetite for food or life.

Developing skills around positive thinking and positive talking in the household.

Families often inherit a negative thinking style that carries the germ of depression. Typically it is a legacy passed from one generation to the next, a pattern of pessimism invoked to protect loved ones from disappointment or stress. But in fact, negative thinking patterns do just the opposite, eroding the mental health of all exposed.

When Dad consistently expresses his disappointment in Josh for bringing home a B minus in chemistry although all the other grades are As, he is exhibiting a kind of cognitive distortion that children learn to deploy on themselves — a mental filtering that screens out positive experience from consideration.

Or perhaps the father envisions catastrophe, seeing such grades as foreclosing the possibility of a top college, thus dooming his son’s future. It is their repetition over time that gives these events power to shape a person’s belief system.

Instead, set up guidelines for healthy communication. Make everyone aware of the common types of distortions:

Catastrophizing, exaggerating the harmful effects of a disappointing event
Personalizing, seeing yourself or your child as the cause of a disappointing outcome
All-or-nothing thinking, reducing complexities to absolutes, like knowing you’re not perfect but seeing yourself as a loser
Overgeneralizing, interpreting one disappointment as part of an inescapable pattern
Filtering, focusing on negative aspects of an experience while ignoring the positive side

Make an agreement among family members to be habit breakers for each other (at home) when someone slips into negative thinking. Remind each other and support each other.

Make sure that your family has an ongoing supply of positive experiences and a bank of them to call on when times get rough. Negative experiences carry so much psychological weight that positive experiences need to seriously outnumber negative ones. A ratio of 2 to 1 is realistic when you start to build positive interactions, and 5 to 1 is the long term goal.

Inventory positive and negative interactions as a family. When you eat breakfast together, how does it go? Is it on balance a positive or negative experience? What action plan does the family need to use to build more positive experience and lessen the negative? For example, encourage activities in which family members include each other in various combinations. Just going to the movies together can be a highly positive shared event.

Get together often to survey emotional needs for the next week. Ask, what do you need to make this work for you? That way challenges can be anticipated and met with minimal stress on the whole family. What emotional needs do family members have in order to get done what is on their schedule? If Sara has a big test on Friday, then one parent might plan to be especially available on Thursday evening for support

Checking in on people’s well-being and not just on their activity schedule contributes to a sense of connectedness that is a major buffer against depression at every stage of life. Paying as much attention to family feelings as family activities is one of the best protections you can use to combat family depression.

This content is Copyright Sussex Publishers, LLC. 2007. This content is intended for personal use and may not be distributed or reproduced without the consent of Sussex Publishers, LLC. Please contact licensing@psychologytoday.com for more information.

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Sue Scheff - Teen Depression

For more articles on teen depression and more click here.

Sue Scheff: Teen Depression by Jackie Rosen

Depression is a major factor in the lives of our youth and young adults ages 10 to 24.

In Broward County, the youngest child identified by the medical exam­iner to die of suicide due to depression was only 9 years of age.

Every 43 sec­onds a teen in the USA age 15 to 18 has either planned a suicide or attempted a suicide due to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.

Why are our children having such a hard time living de­pression free in today's society?
What are the stresses that lead them to the feelings of alienation, helplessness and hopelessness?

Some of today's stresses effecting our youth include the fol­lowing: high performance standards, peer pressures, cultural demands, family problems, lack of extended family support, over scheduling and the need to have instant gratification.

All of these stresses and many more are possible causes that add to the possibility of depression in the youth of our nation.High performance standards, such as those relating to FCATS and other exams, sports and other after school activities, parental or other adult expectations, needed community service requirements, and tougher college entrance requirements are just some of the causes which produce feelings of performance anxiety and depression.

We need to give our children a sense of self that relates to their self worth and individuality.

High standards that we must meet are not only met by meeting the expectations of others but also by those set by ourselves.Peer pressures such as social status, drugs, gangs, bullying, and sexual pressures are stresses that can lead to all kinds of aberrant behaviors.

Behaviors such as cutting oneself, criminal behaviors, drug or alcohol use, sexual promiscuousness, eating disorders or destructive acts due to lack of anger control that in­jure themselves and/or others.

Drug and alcohol usage is often a form of self medication to help escape the underlying feelings of depression. These are all possible behaviors that can lead to feelings of overwhelming anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, alienation and ultimately desperation resulting in self harm.

Today our teens are functioning or not functioning under the pressure of serious stressors that parents, teachers, counselors, doctors and coaches have to be aware of and explore as possible signs of a serious state of depression.

All adults and peers need to understand the effects and the resulting problems that these stresses produce. All family members need to make themselves aware of the stresses in each others lives and reach out to each other to help recognize the signs and symptoms of depression.

If your child displays helplessness and hopelessness, go to the FISP website at www.fisponline.org and see if they meet three of the 20 signs of depression which can lead to possible sui­cidal thoughts.

If these feelings last more than two weeks, all day every day then your child may have clinical depression and it is time to seek help.

Get help early and avoid years of suf­fering for your child and all those who know and love them.

Jackie Rosen is the Executive Director/CEO of the Florida Initiative for Suicide Prevention, Inc. - FISP

Another interesting article on Teen Suicide and Teen Depression:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070907221530.htm

Sue Scheff - Depression and Your Teen by Jackie Rosen

Depression is a major factor in the lives of our youth and young adults ages 10 to 24. In Broward County, the youngest child identified by the medical exam­iner to die of suicide due to depression was only 9 years of age. Every 43 sec­onds a teen in the USA age 15 to 18 has either planned a suicide or attempted a suicide due to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.

Why are our children having such a hard time living de­pression free in today's society? What are the stresses that lead them to the feelings of alienation, helplessness and hopelessness?

Some of today's stresses effecting our youth include the fol­lowing: high performance standards, peer pressures, cultural demands, family problems, lack of extended family support, over scheduling and the need to have instant gratification. All of these stresses and many more are possible causes that add to the possibility of depression in the youth of our nation.

High performance standards, such as those relating to FCATS and other exams, sports and other after school activities, parental or other adult expectations, needed community service requirements, and tougher college entrance requirements are just some of the causes which produce feelings of performance anxiety and depression. We need to give our children a sense of self that relates to their self worth and individuality. High standards that we must meet are not only met by meeting the expectations of others but also by those set by ourselves.

Peer pressures such as social status, drugs, gangs, bullying, and sexual pressures are stresses that can lead to all kinds of aberrant behaviors. Behaviors such as cutting oneself, criminal behaviors, drug or alcohol use, sexual promiscuousness, eating disorders or destructive acts due to lack of anger control that in­jure themselves and/or others. Drug and alcohol usage is often a form of self medication to help escape the underlying feelings of depression. These are all possible behaviors that can lead to feelings of overwhelming anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, alienation and ultimately desperation resulting in self harm. Today our teens are functioning or not functioning under the pressure of serious stressors that parents, teachers, counselors, doctors and coaches have to be aware of and explore as possible signs of a serious state of depression. All adults and peers need to understand the effects and the resulting problems that these stresses produce. All family members need to make themselves aware of the stresses in each others lives and reach out to each other to help recognize the signs and symptoms of depression. If your child displays helplessness and hopelessness, go to the FISP website at www.fisponline.org and see if they meet three of the 20 signs of depression which can lead to possible sui­cidal thoughts. If these feelings last more than two weeks, all day every day then your child may have clinical depression and it is time to seek help. Get help early and avoid years of suf­fering for your child and all those who know and love them.

Jackie Rosen is the Executive Director/CEO of the Florida Initiative for Suicide Prevention, Inc. - FISP