What is Childhood Depression?
Childhood depression is a clinical disorder that can become serious and needs to be treated. It is often thought that children, just because they are small, are happy and have no worries, but this is not always the case. They have worries, difficult moments and suffer from mental disorders such as depression.
Childhood depression is a mental disorder that must be treated.
Prognosis of the disease
To detect a picture of childhood depression, both parents and teachers must be very attentive to changes in children’s behavior. Not only at home, but also at school, where they spend most of their time, where they should be alert to any strange behavior of the child, to set off all the alarms. Likewise, before diagnosing a child with a depressive disorder, specialists in child psychiatry recommend ruling out the existence of other organic diseases.
Symptoms of Childhood Depression
Childhood depression has a somewhat different symptomatology than that manifested by adults and adolescents. Children usually show:
- Irritability, rather than sadness or hopelessness.
- They react to the minimum and in an excessive way.
- They tend to undervalue themselves.
- They develop phobias.
- They suffer sleep disturbances.
- Increased sensitivity to brief separations.
- They begin to have problems at school: they fail and do not do their homework.
- They do not feel like playing, they lose their appetite, they are tired…
It must be taken into account that it is typical of childhood the very rapid changes in mood; so that we see them sad and irritable and playing happily immediately after. These oscillations do not invalidate the diagnosis of possible depression during childhood.
Medical tests for childhood depression
Before the appearance of the referred symptoms, an alarm signal that makes us think that there is a possible psychological disorder should be triggered. It is important to go to a specialist who is an expert in this pathology to perform the relevant tests and establish an appropriate treatment for the patient.
What are the causes of childhood depression?
Childhood depression, as in most mental disorders, has a multifactorial origin. Among the predisposing factors, genetic inheritance plays a determining role. Between 60 and 80% of children suffering from severe or moderate depression usually have a family history of affective disorders. In the case of milder depression, the unstable and conflictive family environment, school problems of social integration, or traumatic experiences, such as loss of people of reference, or bullying, among other circumstances, may play a role.
Can it be prevented?
Children with a family history of depression have a higher risk of suffering this pathology. A calm, structured and safe environment at home, attentive to their needs, in which the child is offered the opportunity to communicate and verbalize how they feel and what their concerns are, and harmonious families are the key to prevent this disorder. In addition, proper nutrition, exercise and good sleep habits are protective factors.
Treatments for Childhood Depression
There are different variants of treatment of childhood depression, however, the treatment must always be individualized, adapted to the child and his conditions. In the same treatment it is essential to involve the parents so that they can intervene in the patient’s environment. It can be treated with psychotherapeutic action, which should be extended to the child’s family environment, or in the most severe cases with pharmacological treatment with antidepressant drugs.
At the psychological level, cognitive-behavioral techniques are included with which the child can modify his behavior in the face of different events. Early treatment is essential, so when the alarm bells ring it is important to act.
Which specialist treats him/her?
Depressive disorders during childhood are treated by a psychiatrist expert in childhood depression, who will be the specialist in charge of carrying out the evaluation both at an organic and psychopathological level and proposing the most appropriate intervention for each case.