What’s What Wednesday: What Depression Looks like in Children
What’s What Wednesday: What Depression Looks like in Children
When people think of depression, common themes that come to mind are sadness, emptiness, hopelessness, insomnia, and stormy clouds. While those symptoms may present in children, your child may also experience anger or increased irritability. Your child may have outbursts of anger and/or aggression, talk back to you or other adults, have meltdowns or throw tantrums. They may become angry or irritated more frequently and quickly at situations they normally wouldn’t be irritated by or that may seem small to you.
Depression may also affect your child in school. They may be aggressive to other students, not listen to teachers, have poor grades, not pay attention, and not complete all their assignments like homework. Generally, what seems like simple behavioral issues may be a little more!
What to do:
Talk with your child:
Get on their level and have a conversation with them. Ask them what’s going on and how they’re feeling. Ask them if there’s anything or anyone bothering them. It’s helpful if you talk with them at eye level so they feel talked to and not talked at. This will help facilitate a healthier, productive conversation and may help them feel more important!
Normalize emotions:
Educate them about emotions. Do they know what sadness feels like? Frustration? Anger? Loneliness? Let them know that it’s okay to feel these emotions and everyone feels them, even adults like you! Encourage them to talk about these emotions and express how they feel to you. When they feel something they can’t name, help them learn what emotion they’re feeling and then normalize it. We’re all emotional beings! It may be helpful to give them an example on situations that made you sad or angry. Even better, you can recall a situation that your child went through.
Tackle the behaviors:
This is your opportunity to teach them what’s okay and not okay. Teach them that it’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to be aggressive towards others or talk back to adults. Replace your child’s negative behaviors with a positive coping skill. You can suggest to them that they can hug a pillow tightly or run in place really fast instead to get through the anger. You can even suggest that they can talk through their anger with you! Also, try asking them how you can help them. This lets your child know that you care and you’re interested in finding a solution to help them feel better.
Emotions are difficult. Even for adults! Some emotions are harder to process and handle than others. It takes time and a lot of trial and error to figure out how to properly process our emotions and sometimes we still don’t know the right way to handle them! So guide your child in learning how to process their emotions healthily. And always, always, always love your child through them.
If your child or a child you know are presenting with any of these challenges, please call us or share our number. We may be able to help!
Community Events:
The second phase of the Teen Empowerment group is starting Feb. 26th! Reserve your spot today! More information is listed on our website under the Event tab.
On Feb. 18th from 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM, Avow Kids and David Lawrence Center is hosting a Mindful Families group at 1301 Whippoorwill Lane, Naples. Teen participants ages 13-17 and parents are invited to attend. Teens will engage in art therapy projects to express emotions and strengthen coping skills. Parents will receive a presentation on identifying signs and symptoms of common behavioral issues in youth while also learning positive prevention tips. This is a FREE service and spots are limited due to social distancing precautions, so RSVP today! Call (239) 261-4404 or email [email protected] to reserve your spot.