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COLUMN >> BY KENDRA SILER-MARSIGLIO
Healthy Edge
Childhood Depression?
oes your child exhibit increased irritability, anger, or hostility? Frequent complaints of physical illnesses such as headaches and stomachaches? Or, major changes in sleeping or eating patterns? If so, your child may be depressed. It’s not only adults who can experience clinical depression. This treatable illness can also affect kids of any age. About 5 out of every 100 children and adolescents have childhood depression, according to www.healthyplace.com (the largest consumer mental health website). What childhood depression is: when persistent depression symptoms interfere with a child’s or an adolescent’s ability to function. What childhood depression is not: when kids have typical tantrums, mood swings, and moving through developmental stages. Many child psychiatrists and developmental psychologists — including Dr. Joan Luby, a professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, and Daniel Klein, a professor of clinical psychology at State University of New York at Stony Brook — agree that children as young as 2 or 3 can be clinically depressed. Dr. Klein’s research on preschool depression has shown him that the roots of adult depression “start very early.”
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Could my child be depressed? If your kid exhibits any of the following behaviors, please consider talking to your kid’s pediatrician about it: • Increased irritability, anger, or hostility • Decreased interest in activities; or inability to enjoy previously favorite activities • Hopelessness • Persistent boredom; low energy • Social isolation, poor communication • Low self esteem and guilt • Extreme sensitivity to rejection or failure • Frequent sadness, tearfulness • Difficulty with relationships • Frequent complaints of physical illnesses such as headaches and stomachaches • Frequent absences from school or poor performance in school • Poor concentration • Major changes in eating or sleeping patterns • Talk of or efforts to run away from home • Causing trouble at home or school • Thoughts or expressions of suicide or self destructive behavior
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130 | Winter 2012