Being a parent is a source of joy and fulfillment, and my wife and I aren’t different. Our kids are the most important thing in our lives, and nothing can brighten our day more than spending time with them and watching them develop one step at a time.
However, when they’re unhappy, I’m unhappy, and I’d like to share with you things we didn’t know when we started. My kids are now 15 years old and 13 years old, both boys, and we went through some rough times in the past, as my older boy was diagnosed with childhood depression a little after his 10th birthday.
I reckon that he could have been diagnosed earlier, but I and my wife just weren’t aware of his condition, as no one ever told us that kids suffer from depression too. We used to be frustrated and didn’t understand why he wasn’t happy, and more often than not we used to blame ourselves, as we thought that the source of his unhappiness is neglect, us not being attentive enough, or even us not being happy ourselves, and that unhappy parents raise unhappy children.
That isn’t the case really, as the causes of childhood depression are unknown, and sometimes upbringing has nothing to do with it. You do however have a critical role as parents in treating your child, making sure he’ll get the best conditions to fight his condition. I’d like to share with you how we coped with our son’s condition and managed to be a happy family again.
How to make an unhappy child happy?
It’s important to state that being sad and being depressed isn’t the same. Your child can just be sensitive or under stress and doesn’t know how to be comfortable with his emotions. When your child is unhappy, try to do the following things in order to lift his mood, before you rush to conclusions and create unneeded panic and discomfort.
First and foremost, connect with your children. Listen to them and be attentive to them. Listen to their problems while you get on their level. Don’t try to always fix their problems or teach them a lesson, or act like you have all the answers and know better than them. Just try to listen to them and let them express their feelings while being respectful and never waving them off. Try to come up with suggestions to help them feel and cope better with what they feel.
Support your children in expressing their feelings, and tell them that it’s alright to feel sad, mad, be afraid, and such. Never try to control what they feel or tell them that they’re okay. You’ll only teach them to be ashamed of how they feel and repress their feelings rather than solve them. Supporting your children in being comfortable with their feelings from a young age will contribute to their happiness as teenagers and adults.
Signs of childhood depression
We started to be suspicious of our son’s state when he was about 9 and felt a little down, and this feeling kept on for a while. It’s alright for children, just as it is for adults, to feel a little down every once in a while. If a child is feeling sad for more than two weeks, you might need to look for professional help.
Here are some of the symptoms of childhood depression: sadness and low energy, feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, feeling guilty and angry, difficulty concentrating, crying, and worst of all - suicidal thoughts.
Keep in mind that a child doesn’t have to present all of these symptoms in order to be considered depressed. The warning signs you want to look for other than the symptoms above are:
-
The child is being easily irritated
-
Changes in appetite
-
Changes in sleeping patterns
-
Emotional outbursts
-
Difficulty concentrating
-
He’s getting sick easily
-
Not performing well in school
-
Getting into trouble in school
-
Defiance and trouble with authority figures
-
Expressing suicidal thoughts and talking about death or dying
If you see any of the symptoms or the signs mentioned here in your child, you should seek professional help. Depression is a serious illness, but the good news is that it can be treated. You can find help to their pediatrician who’ll give you further assistance, or contact a mental health center to find a local child therapist.
What to do after your child gets diagnosed with depression?
The first thing you’ll need to do is find a therapist for ongoing therapy. They will instruct you on how to proceed on the professional level: where, how, and in what frequency you should treat your child. Other than this, you’ll need to be there emotionally, and show the child that you care and support them, while not being frustrated and controlling.
Promoting a healthy lifestyle is extremely important and a very immediate method to promote mental stability. Studies show that healthy and balanced food, regular exercise, and good sleeping habits are crucial for good mental health, and being devoid of these a child or an adult with otherwise good mental health can develop depression and other mental illnesses.
Sports in particular really helped our son, as being a part of the soccer club in his school makes him exert himself, spending a lot of energy in the process, and thus getting hungry (with a taste for healthy food), and also more tired at night (falling asleep at normal hours was a struggle for him since a very young age). By the way, encouraging your child to join any club will be blissful, as depressed children tend to shun away from society.
What about yourselves? How to deal with childhood depression as a parent?
As parents, our main focus is our children. When our child got diagnosed with depression we didn’t think about ourselves for a second. But my wife and I felt anxiety, frustration, guilt, fear, and just terrible really. We were so focused on our son that we didn’t even have the time to self-reflect, or even to reflect on each other and realize that we’re spiraling. You might find it hard, just like we did, to deal with this situation. It’s said that whatever your child feels you feel too, and we did almost instantly develop the same signs and symptoms of depression our child did.
What worked for us was of course to create the same environment that we tried to create for our son, meaning, healthy food, good sleeping habits, and regular physical exercise. However, it wasn’t that easy, and the real game-changer was that my wife and I started family therapy, which later on led to individual therapy sessions as well. But it’s our therapist that helped us get back on track, be more forgiving towards ourselves as parents, and really paved the way for our success in coping with childhood depression as parents.
It can be difficult to find the time to do that of course, especially if you just found out that your son is suffering from a mental illness. Online therapy worked best for us, as fitting in-person sessions was impossible given the fact that we focused all of our efforts on our sons at that time. I don’t want to recommend any specific sites as our experience was great but all the credit should be given to our fantastic therapist. As long as you choose from the best therapy websites, your success rate in finding a good therapist will be high.
Final thoughts on dealing with childhood depression
Childhood depression is a serious illness but it can be treated! Do not neglect or overlook it as there’s a strong correlation between childhood and adult depression, and most children who suffer from it will have another episode in less than 5 years' time. Also, going untreated will increase the risk of suicide as a teenager or an adult. The causes of it are unknown and can be a combination of things: physical health, trauma, past events, family history, genetics, and more.
It’s therefore very important to know the symptoms, and know what to do if your child is diagnosed with it. And not less importantly, you’ll have to keep in mind that you’re not to blame. As parents, you have to be strong for your children, but don’t neglect yourself physically and mentally.
