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Is your child depressed? 3 signs parents should watch for

Is your child depressed? 3 signs parents should watch for

Anyone living with a child or teen knows how unpredictable they can be. Teenagers are moody. Toddlers throw tantrums when they become frustrated.

But when is a teen simply fighting the blues or on the road to depression? When do a toddler’s fits signal a larger, looming problem? What do parents need to be on the lookout for?

According to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, an astonishing 70 per cent of young adults living with problems such as depression reported symptoms starting as early as their childhood. Today, at least 10 per cent of Canadian children are diagnosed with depression and, alarmingly, the age of its onset has been dropping in the past few decades that it now regularly affects pre-teens. In extreme circumstances, depression has been diagnosed in children as young as age four. And this is presenting new challenges for parents and the wider community.

“Ten years ago we were seeing teens aged 14 or 15 come in with depression. Today that age is 12 and it continues to go down,” says Dr. Marshall Korenblum, Psychiatrist-in-Chief at the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre for Children and Families and associate professor at University of Toronto.

One of the main contributing factors to this trend, he says, is the earlier onset of puberty when the brain begins to mature and chemicals turn on. Increasing social pressures and new technologies have also been identified as culprits.

Dr. Korenblum calls youth the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to mental health. “We’re just learning about the impact of technology like computers and the Internet on the brain,” he says. “Notions of privacy are changing with trends like selfies shared in public forums and social media. Barriers to our private lives are breaking down, whether that is good or bad, we don’t know yet.”

Experts also warn about the impact of cyberbullying and premature sexualization to our kids’ self-esteem.

All this pressure hits girls especially hard. A U.K. study released this week of 7,000 children found that children’s happiness drops after age 11 due to these factors, with girls rating their happiness lower than the boys in the study, putting them at greater risk.

The challenge for many is identifying when unhappiness is, in fact, depression. The signs among teens are similar to those in adults. Changes in sleep patterns, appetite, socialization and concentration should be heeded.

But for parents of pre-teens and younger children, identifying a possible mental health issue can be especially challenging. Children don’t necessarily have the capability to verbalize their feelings so their mood can manifest itself in a variety of physical and emotional symptoms such as:

  • complaints of a sore tummy or head

  • becoming clingy and suffer separation anxiety

  • irritability

  • social withdrawal

  • playing

And with the age of children afflicted with depression continuing to become younger, experts say parents should be on the lookout for three warning signals:

  • Persistence: the symptoms should be most of the day, every day for at least two weeks.

  • Severity: a child can become immobilized by clinical depression

  • Functional impairment: the child is not getting on with the usual things he or she should be getting on with, whether that’s engagement at school or their toys and hobbies, playing with friends or relationships with family at home.

“Kids can become unhappy or gloomy for a few days after getting a bad mark on a test. Clinical depression is continued unhappiness and functional impairment that prevents them from doing the things they typically do,” says Dr. Korenblum.

Before rushing off to a psychologist, however, the first step parents should take is an appointment with their family doctor or pediatrician. Some physical illnesses can present symptoms similar to depression. These include anemia – a lower than normal red blood cell count, low thyroid and even infectious mono.

There are a number of steps parents can take to arm their kid against entering a downward spiral.

“First and foremost, parents need to take care of themselves,” says Dr. Korenblum. “Health strong parents are good role models for kids."

Don’t transit your stress to your kids, Dr. Korenblum warns. “There is a general trend of parents sharing too much with kids,” he says, referring to discussing problems relating to finances, unemployment or caring for aging parents with young kids.

Parents should provide digital literacy to their kids. “Help them be critical and aware when they are being seduced by consumerism,” he says. “We now have to teach our kids to look both ways before crossing information highway and to not accept rides from strangers on the Internet.” One need only look at the headline-grabbing stories such as the Amanda Todd tragedy to heed as a warning.

Another important piece of advice from doctors, one perhaps more difficult for parents especially, is to keep the communication lines open with your child when they start expressing low feelings including talk of suicide, especially among teens.

“Don’t freak out as a parent, don’t shut them down,” says Dr. Korenblum. “Having the odd suicidal thought is not uncommon.”