Depression can badly affect your child's development, both in their social life and in their school life.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Hazell P.
Depression.
In: David T (editor). Recent advances in paediatrics. 21st edition. Royal Society of Medicine, London, UK; 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

¹ The depression can also damage your family relationships, especially if your family doesn't understand your child's problems.

That's why it's important not to wait for a child or teenager to just grow out of it.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Robbins DR.
The outcomes of juvenile-onset depression.
Rhode Island Medicine. 1993; 76: 387-389.

 

 

 

 

 

² Getting the right treatment can help your child cope with this illness and get better faster. Treatment may also stop the depression fr om getting worse.

In rare cases, children may need to stay in the hospital if they are at risk of hurting themselves or if they need a special treatment.

Most children who have had depression are at risk for more bouts, either a few years later or many years later as adults. Doctors call this a relapse. Unfortunately, even though we know that treatment can help with one bout, we don't know much about whether it can stop depression from coming back again later. There hasn't been much research on this.

What will happen to your child depends partly on how bad the depression is. But here's what the research shows.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
National Institute of Mental Health.
Depression in Children and Adolescents.
June 2008. Available at http://www.nimh.nih.gov/HealthInformation/depchildmenu.cfm (accessed on 29 January 2009).

 

 

 

 

 

³

Here's what we know about what might happen to your child in the future.

It's almost unbearable for parents to think that their child might feel so bad that they try to harm or kill themselves.

But thinking about suicide and trying it are common for children and teenagers who are depressed. A third of depressed young people try to kill themselves at some point.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Birmaher B, Ryan ND, Williamson DE, et al.
Childhood and adolescent depression: a review of the past 10 years.
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 1996; 35: 1575-1583.

 

 

 

 

 

⁸

Depressed teenagers are at special risk. Younger children think about death, but they rarely act on it. Suicide in general is six times more common for young people ages 15 to 19 than for those ages 10 to 14.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Mental health: Culture, race and ethnicity. A supplement to Mental Health: a report of the Surgeon General.
2001. Available at http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/ (accessed on 29 January 2009).

 

 

 

 

 

⁹

Girls are more likely to try suicide. In fact, they try it twice as often as boys. But among children who try it, boys are four times more likely than girls to actually die.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Mental health: Culture, race and ethnicity. A supplement to Mental Health: a report of the Surgeon General.
2001. Available at http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/ (accessed on 29 January 2009).

 

 

 

 

 

⁹

If children say they are thinking about suicide, it's a clear sign that they need help. Their parents or caregivers need to take it very seriously.

For more, see Would my child try suicide?

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