What Causes Depression In Children?

I just visited my friend, a child psychologist in New York and she told me about the increasing incidence of childhood depression today. She also told me that depression was no longer malice of adults alone; the number of children affected by depression was increasing at an alarming rate today with the increase in stress, anxiety and tension.

Many parents may deny the fact that their children are affected by depression; but far from the truth this mental trauma affects children. Unlike adults that convey their depressive mood in words, children convey it through a strange behavior. Childhood depression would make children refrain from daily activities, with this affecting their social activities, family life and life in school.

Some potential causes for childhood depression:

• Environmental stress could affect the soft and delicate nature of children and make them prone to depression. Environment stress could be caused by unpleasant events like attending the first day in school, lack of personal parental attention, failing in a class, shifting to a new school or place, lack of love and facing parents’ divorce.

• Childhood depression could be caused due to genetic reasons; it could pass on from one generation to another though it is not necessarily hereditary. However it is significant to note that a child could suffer from depression even if none of his/her family member suffers from it; genes only increased the risk of suffering from depression.

• It is significant to know that negative thinking in children could also bring about childhood depression; it is also predominantly in children where the parents themselves are negative thinkers. Depression by negative thinking is found more in children that have a low self-esteem, a pessimistic view of life and also take on additional stress. Parents that do not help to increase the self-esteem of their children could have children with depression, with negative childhood experiences increasing the risk of children suffering from childhood depression.

Childhood depression is much more than a child feeling blue; feeling blue is just a part of the child’s development. Believe me, I have seen parents experience the depression of their children; it causes serious problems if left untreated. Depression in childhood could affect a child’s mental stability, performance in school, his/her self-esteem, social connections and parent-child relationship; it could also lead to more fatal results like suicide and violence. It is true that childhood depression should be tackled with a lot of patience; proper treatment would ensure the child returns back to normal life soon.   

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