Depression

Some Ideas For Addressing Depression

The blues and adolescence seem to go hand-in-hand. So many changes are happening all at once: peer pressure and popularity issues are often high, academic pressure is usually monstrous, the state of the world/equality/justice is a mess, and besides all this, enormous hormonal changes are occurring. What's more, many teenagers (no matter how sophisticated they may appear to be), have neither enough life experience to understand their emotional swings nor the community of support to offer coping strategies to deal with them. It is understandable then that our youth (see our article on Teen Depression ) are likely to feel overwhelmed and be vulnerable to intermittent struggles with depression.

As parents, it's important to:

• Spend time together as a family/community as well as one-on-one.
• Talk to each other about how to maneuver through difficult times.
• Be prepared to listen without judging.
• Resist the temptation to offer immediate comments, solutions, or follow-ups like "Let this be a lesson to you..." or "I warned you about this..."
• Allow enough time to talk through concerns and try to guide your teenager to come up with his/her own solutions.
• If communication is too difficult, find a pro-youth therapist.
• Don't expect perfection, nor push for it.
• Respect your teenager's privacy but also learn how much "alone time" is acceptable within your family.
• Boost your teenager's ideas of themselves and confidence by zeroing in on specific positive attributes.
• Avoid being vague or patronizing.
• Help your teenager eat well and exercise.