Depression In Children

Depression in Preschool Children
Depression is the most common psychological disorder. This disorder can affect people’s mood, energy, behavior and emotions. It can create an overwhelmingfeeling of sadness, hopelessness and lack of self-worth. This disorder is rarely associated with preschoolers, but in the last 20 years researchers have started to study the presence of depression inchildren under 6 years old. Developmental psychologists have debated that children don’t have the emotional maturity to feel despondent but recent studies contradict those ideas.
It’s notalways easy to say when a child is passing for a ‘temporal phase’ or suffering depression. The behavior of a depressed child is not always like that of an adult. They might show frequent sadness ortearfulness; low energy or boredom; extreme sensitivity to rejection or failure; inability to enjoy previously favorite activities; and changes in behavior. Children may say negative things about himselfand may be self-destructive. (Watkins, 2007)
Dr. Joan Luby has been studying the occurrence of depression in preschoolers for the last two decades. She states that children “not just showsynonymous clinical symptoms to adult depression -- they also show similar patterns of brain activity when scanned using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques”. (DANA Foundation, 2011)From her studies, Luby believes that the experience of depression at an early age can leave a mark in a child and that these children are more likely to suffer depression as adults. Dr. Luby and hercolleagues have found that children showing depressive symptoms are more likely to suffer from depression one or two years later. (JAMA and Archives Journals, 2009)
Because of the long lastingeffects of depression on children, is very important to try to identify its signs early on. Depression in preschoolers can be the beginning of a major depressive disorder. It is believe that...