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Is your child or teenager persistently afraid, sad, or worrisome? It is typical for children and adolescents to be upset and fearful as they grow up. Everyone experiences these healthy emotions at some point in life. Despite your best efforts in parenting, it is impossible to shield your child from the troubles and concerns of this world.
On a positive note, these age-appropriate negative experiences enable young ones to develop resilience, healthy coping patterns, and value introspection. When your child gets stressed because you are going to work, despite having a caregiver with them, you do not drop your responsibility to stay at home with them. You train them to expect you to leave for work but assure them that you will be back.
The experience teaches them to develop secure attachments. They become comfortable with the wait. Your return fortifies their trust in you and the process.
Why Your Child or Teenager Becomes Depressed or Anxious
Sometimes, your child's fear or despair may be too much. Little things may set them off the edge. They may seem incapable of controlling their reaction to negative experiences. Kids can become severely anxious and depressed because of nature and nurture.
Genetics
Your child's genes inform their vulnerability to depression and anxiety. Their genetic makeup could be the foundation of their natural resilience, mental strength, and tenacity. They are also vulnerable to depression and anxiety if their immediate relatives have these mental illnesses.
Life Experience
Nurture or life experiences also shape your child's ability to cope with stress, regulate emotions and thoughts, and cultivate healthy responses to situations. For instance, if you or your partner are constantly absent in your child's life, their mind may get conditioned to expect rejection. It may cause them to be anxious when making long-term relationship commitments or become depressed from your apparent lack of interest.
Circumstances that can affect your child's mental health include
Manifestation of Depression or Anxiety in Children and Adolescents
Depression and anxiety are two different mental conditions. However, they can occur together. Having either of these mental conditions increases the likelihood of acquiring the other.
Depressive Disorder
A depressive disorder manifests as persistent sadness and a lack of interest in activities of daily living. Check for these signs if you suspect your child has depression.
Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety disorder in children and adolescents manifest as intense, persistent worry and fear that interferes with everyday living. You may notice your child's anxiety began after a traumatic experience. Your child becomes increasingly negative and hypersensitive to pain and uncertainties.
Anxiety symptoms to look out for in your child include
The Impact of Depression or Anxiety on Your Child
Depressive and anxiety disorders are mental conditions that rewire the brain. Your child has it rough because their brain is still developing. The two mental illnesses interfere with this developmental process creating problems that may persist into adulthood if the child does not receive therapy.
The Brain
Mood disorders reduce and thin out the brain's grey matter. The grey matter contains nerve pathways that mediate vision, hearing, memory, decision-making, and emotional regulation.
After a traumatic experience, the child struggles to regulate their thoughts, emotions, and mood because of the reduced grey matter volume. The experience conditions their mind, perception, and expectations toward the negative, consciously and subconsciously.
Thinking Patterns
Trauma leaves psychological markers in your child's mind, making them vulnerable to depressive and anxiety disorders in later life. Witnessing domestic violence impairs a child's cognition. Ongoing exposure to abuse and neglect worsens their mental development, especially when the trauma occurs within the first five years of the child's life.
It
Emotional Regulation
Adversity, violence, abuse, and negligence impair your child's ability to control their emotions. A distressed child feels unsafe. The surge in stress hormones reduces their deductive reasoning, logical thinking, and attention. Their stress alarm tells them they are under threat and makes them hypervigilant. Every time the child encounters the same stressors, they become vulnerable, even as adults.
Behavioral Maladaption
Thought and emotional dysregulation have accompanying behaviors. Here are signs to look out for in your child.
Behavioral trauma manifestations are usually an attempt to deal with unresolved distress. It is also a subconscious attempt to get your attention. Unfortunately, the behaviors cause more harm to your child's mental state.
Physical Health
Depression and anxiety also predispose children and adolescents to physical health issues.
Mental Health Decline
Childhood depression and anxiety disorders make the child susceptible to other severe mood disorders.
The child is likely to develop;
Your Role in Helping Your Child Manage Anxiety or Depression
As a caregiver, the mental health of your child is your responsibility. Your child needs you physically, mentally, financially, and emotionally to overcome their mental condition. Your support, availability, and attachment can help the child heal and develop resilience amid the traumatic experience.
Your child needs you to reach their emotional, cognitive, and mental milestones. Your presence, care, and concern are enough to see them through any adversity they face during their formative years. Financial support alone is not enough for children and teenagers.
Therapy
Depression and anxiety are complex mental conditions requiring a multifaced approach. As a parent, your support alone may not be enough for the child to overcome their mental illness. A therapist has the expertise, resources, and experience to treat mood disorders. They will also empower you with the tools, skills, and knowledge to support your child. Reach out to a counseling psychologist today.
On a positive note, these age-appropriate negative experiences enable young ones to develop resilience, healthy coping patterns, and value introspection. When your child gets stressed because you are going to work, despite having a caregiver with them, you do not drop your responsibility to stay at home with them. You train them to expect you to leave for work but assure them that you will be back.
The experience teaches them to develop secure attachments. They become comfortable with the wait. Your return fortifies their trust in you and the process.
Why Your Child or Teenager Becomes Depressed or Anxious
Sometimes, your child's fear or despair may be too much. Little things may set them off the edge. They may seem incapable of controlling their reaction to negative experiences. Kids can become severely anxious and depressed because of nature and nurture.
Genetics
Your child's genes inform their vulnerability to depression and anxiety. Their genetic makeup could be the foundation of their natural resilience, mental strength, and tenacity. They are also vulnerable to depression and anxiety if their immediate relatives have these mental illnesses.
Life Experience
Nurture or life experiences also shape your child's ability to cope with stress, regulate emotions and thoughts, and cultivate healthy responses to situations. For instance, if you or your partner are constantly absent in your child's life, their mind may get conditioned to expect rejection. It may cause them to be anxious when making long-term relationship commitments or become depressed from your apparent lack of interest.
Circumstances that can affect your child's mental health include
- Divorce - the tension and hatred between you and your partner affect your children. It can manifest as depression or anxiety.
- Exposure to domestic violence - broods fear, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
- Sexual abuse by a trusted caregiver or loved one
- Physical violence
- Parental neglect
- Verbal abuse
- Exposure to a relative with mental illness
- The death of a loved one
- Parental rejection
- Exposure to a traumatic event like witnessing a loved one's death, a parent with a terminal illness, a school shoot-out, or going through an accident or a terrorist attack
Manifestation of Depression or Anxiety in Children and Adolescents
Depression and anxiety are two different mental conditions. However, they can occur together. Having either of these mental conditions increases the likelihood of acquiring the other.
Depressive Disorder
A depressive disorder manifests as persistent sadness and a lack of interest in activities of daily living. Check for these signs if you suspect your child has depression.
- Lingering sadness, hopelessness, and distress that does not resolve with a reward
- Lack of interest in hobbies, school, friends, or things they love
- Isolation - your child appears withdrawn and by themself all the time
- Temper tantrums or overreactions over little provocations
- Loss of appetite or persistent eating
- Lack of sleep, or constant sleeping
- Poor performance in school
- Uncontrollable anger, irritation, and agitation
- Delinquency behavior
- Suicidal ideation and attempts in adolescents - manifest as self-harming through cutting, biting, or burning
- Low energy - characterized by slowness and persistent tiredness
- Low self-esteem and self-worth
- Exposure to poverty or financial strain
Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety disorder in children and adolescents manifest as intense, persistent worry and fear that interferes with everyday living. You may notice your child's anxiety began after a traumatic experience. Your child becomes increasingly negative and hypersensitive to pain and uncertainties.
Anxiety symptoms to look out for in your child include
- Uncontrollable and unrelenting worry and fear
- Intense feelings of impending doom
- Restlessness, agitation, and irritation
- Increased heartbeat, breathing, and high blood pressure during each anxious episode
- Inability to sleep, work, rest, or socialize from the sudden anxiety attacks
- Lack of sleep
- Poor appetite
- Poor concentration and cognition
- Extreme tiredness
The Impact of Depression or Anxiety on Your Child
Depressive and anxiety disorders are mental conditions that rewire the brain. Your child has it rough because their brain is still developing. The two mental illnesses interfere with this developmental process creating problems that may persist into adulthood if the child does not receive therapy.
The Brain
Mood disorders reduce and thin out the brain's grey matter. The grey matter contains nerve pathways that mediate vision, hearing, memory, decision-making, and emotional regulation.
After a traumatic experience, the child struggles to regulate their thoughts, emotions, and mood because of the reduced grey matter volume. The experience conditions their mind, perception, and expectations toward the negative, consciously and subconsciously.
Thinking Patterns
Trauma leaves psychological markers in your child's mind, making them vulnerable to depressive and anxiety disorders in later life. Witnessing domestic violence impairs a child's cognition. Ongoing exposure to abuse and neglect worsens their mental development, especially when the trauma occurs within the first five years of the child's life.
It
- Reduces your child's intelligence quotient (IQ)
- Diminishes your child's attention span and memory
- Worsens your child's academic performance
- Slows the development of cognitive skills - your child's ability to read, learn, reason, or remember becomes impaired
Emotional Regulation
Adversity, violence, abuse, and negligence impair your child's ability to control their emotions. A distressed child feels unsafe. The surge in stress hormones reduces their deductive reasoning, logical thinking, and attention. Their stress alarm tells them they are under threat and makes them hypervigilant. Every time the child encounters the same stressors, they become vulnerable, even as adults.
Behavioral Maladaption
Thought and emotional dysregulation have accompanying behaviors. Here are signs to look out for in your child.
- Distressed toddlers will throw temper tantrums from emotional overstimulation because the raging of anger, fear, or nervousness is beyond their realm of control.
- Children also withdraw from others and zone to their world when the distress is overwhelming. They will express their pent-up emotions in drawings or re-enact their fears at playtime or through communication.
- Distressful experiences also manifest as recurring nightmares or irrational fears in young children.
- Children also learn to appease their abuser as a coping mechanism to avoid punishment or other negative outcomes. You may notice the child is eager to please authority, does things with meticulous precision, or gets intensely worried over minor mistakes or failures.
- The child may also become clingy to you or your spouse.
- Adolescents tend to become destructive in their behavior. They begin hanging out with the wrong crowd, experiment with drugs and alcohol to forget their misery, skip school, lush out at authority, bully others, become hypersexual, or re-enact their abuse on other vulnerable children.
- Teenagers are also more likely to self-harm by cutting, hitting, biting, or attempting suicide.
Behavioral trauma manifestations are usually an attempt to deal with unresolved distress. It is also a subconscious attempt to get your attention. Unfortunately, the behaviors cause more harm to your child's mental state.
Physical Health
Depression and anxiety also predispose children and adolescents to physical health issues.
- Anxiety affects your child's cardiovascular health by constantly raising blood pressure and heartbeat rate, leaving the child vulnerable to irregular heartbeats, weakening heart muscles, hardening blood vessels, and high blood pressure.
- Appetite fluctuations, nausea, and vomiting experienced in anxiety trigger hyperacidity, dyspepsia, and ulcerations in the digestive tract.
- Anxiety also causes severe constipation and diarrhea, leading to irritable bowel movement, hernia development, and inflammation in the intestines.
- Depression and anxiety disorders can increase the child's appetite causing severe weight gain. Appetite suppression can lead to malnutrition, which affects other physical facets of the child's health.
Mental Health Decline
Childhood depression and anxiety disorders make the child susceptible to other severe mood disorders.
The child is likely to develop;
- Substance use disorder - when they use drugs, alcohol, or medication to cope with their experiences
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)- is a form of anxiety disorder stemming from unresolved traumatic experiences.
- Eating disorders - the child may abuse food to cope with their adverse experience.
- Attachment disorders - this can persist to adulthood, where the person becomes unable to form healthy relationships and boundaries with others.
Your Role in Helping Your Child Manage Anxiety or Depression
As a caregiver, the mental health of your child is your responsibility. Your child needs you physically, mentally, financially, and emotionally to overcome their mental condition. Your support, availability, and attachment can help the child heal and develop resilience amid the traumatic experience.
Your child needs you to reach their emotional, cognitive, and mental milestones. Your presence, care, and concern are enough to see them through any adversity they face during their formative years. Financial support alone is not enough for children and teenagers.
Therapy
Depression and anxiety are complex mental conditions requiring a multifaced approach. As a parent, your support alone may not be enough for the child to overcome their mental illness. A therapist has the expertise, resources, and experience to treat mood disorders. They will also empower you with the tools, skills, and knowledge to support your child. Reach out to a counseling psychologist today.