It is absolutely normal to feel blue occasionally or to feel down for a while if something happens bad to us. Out of the usual run of things, bad moods or acting out is likely to be happened, but depression is somewhat exceptional. It is important to understand the difference between feeling sad or blue and being what is called "clinically depressed".
Depression is not a sign of weakness; it's a real medical illness, thought to be caused by imbalance of brain chemicals along with some other factors, but is not something you can just snap out of it. Depression can affect children, teens and adults of all ages.
Teenage depression isn't just bad moods and intermittent dejection, but it is a serious problem that influences every phase of a teen's life. Depression can raze the very essence of a teenager's personality, causing a devastating sense of sadness, despair, anger or suicide can be deadly outcome of depression.
Recent statistics suggest that one in six of our teenagers experience so much distress in their lives that they will consider suicide. Depression is usually left untreated because people fail to recognise the symptoms and believe it is an ordinary wretchedness, a phase that one is going through.
As a parent, can anything be more dreadful than thinking a child that they nurture, plan for, make sacrifices for, comfort, hope for and worry about will one day grow into a young person, who will consciously deliberate about whether he want to carry on living or not? The vast majority of youth suffering from depression can be treated, and as a concerned parent, teacher, or friend, there are many things you can do to help them.
If your child experience depression, he may have problems with concentration, memory, sleep, appetite, motivation, energy, and their way of thinking, thus affecting their school work and making them more vulnerable to drifting into drug or alcohol use or into other knotty behaviours.
If your child has forlorn thoughts about his life or he used to talk about suicide, it is important to take the threat seriously and seek professional help. If you think you child is depressed, talk to him, listen to him and let him speak too. Sometimes he will say things that may be painful to hear, but you are compelled to make your child sure that you really care for him, help him figure out that no matter how overwhelming problems seem to be, there is always a door of hope and help.
Going to bed earlier protects adolescents against depression and suicidal thoughts. Teenagers whose parents enforce bedtimes of 10 pm or earlier are significantly less likely to be depressed and to have less suicidal thoughts than their colleagues whose parents allowed them to go to bed at midnight or later. The parents who are stricter about bedtime, might have other qualities that can protect their child from depression because children are usually concerned about how much their parents are concerned and care for them.