Recognizing Adolescent Depression
Parents should investigate further and seek outside help if their child or adolescent expresses (or seems to be experiencing) feelings of sadness, hopelessness, despair, worthlessness, or lack of interest in usual activities. Parents should also be concerned if their teen is having trouble concentrating, cannot make a decision, and has shown a drop in academic performance. Because adolescents do not have the verbal skills of adults, they often cannot express what they are feeling in a way that allows parents to identify depression as the issue. Sometimes physical symptoms may be a way for parents to dig deeper. Headaches, muscle aches, low energy, sudden change in appetite or weight, insomnia or hypersomnia may be physical manifestations of clinical depression. A depressed teen may also seem restless, irritable, anxious, or belligerent. You may notice he or she is having trouble getting along with peers, siblings, and authority figures. Teachers may report the child is skipping classes or not paying attention in class. Your teen might start paying less attention to his or her appearance and hygiene, or may seem to spend much more time alone, possibly even dropping out of the usual activities they enjoy (sports, hobbies, music lessons).
If you are a parent with a teen whose behavior has changed and negative patterns have existed for more than 2 weeks, please contact a local mental health practitioner with expertise in treating children and adolescents to further assess the situation. Depression responds best to therapy and treatment when it is identified early.
Teen Statistics
The statistics on teen depression are sobering. Studies indicate that one in five children have some sort of mental, behavioral, or emotional problem, and that one in ten may have a serious emotional problem. Among adolescents, one in eight may suffer from depression. Of all these children and teens struggling with emotional and behavioral problems, a mere 30% receive any sort of intervention or treatment. The other 70% simply struggle through the pain of mental illness or emotional turmoil, doing their best to make it to adulthood.
- One in five children have a diagnosable mental, emotional or behavioral disorder. And up to one in 10 may suffer from a serious emotional disturbance. Seventy percent of children, however, do not receive mental health services (SGRMH, 1999).
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common mental disorders in children, affecting 3 to 5 percent of school-age children (NIMH, 1999).
- As many as one in every 33 children and one in eight adolescents may have depression (CMHS, 1998).
- Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds and the sixth leading cause of death for 5- to 14-year-olds. The number of attempted suicides is even higher (AACAP, 1997).
- Studies have confirmed the short-term efficacy and safety of treatments for depression in youth (NIMH, 2000).
(Source, National Mental Health Association, http://www.nmha.org)
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