Family History
The factors of genetics, the child's environment, and other stressful life events served to show you just how vulnerable kids can be to depression. Obviously, one of the most important groups that will influence a child is her family.
When talking about predictors of depression, it does not mean that if these items are present in your family that your child will automatically become depressed. These predictors should serve as red flags for you to consider when trying to decide whether your child is depressed and if she needs help.
There are almost as many predictors of depression as there are families. In other words, your family is unique and will never completely match another in its complexities and problems. This is not the time to compare yourself with your neighbor or your neighbor's child. It requires honesty and a true willingness to face your family's troubles, but the payoff can be huge.
Essential
Every family, no matter how healthy, has some level of dysfunction in it. To deny this is where the real trouble can begin. Take off your blinders and honestly evaluate how what is happening in your family could be a foreshadowing of depression for your child.
Mood Disorders
Depression is often predicted when mood disorders, personality disorders, or alcoholism are present. To be identified as a mood disorder, two things must be present. First, there is a significant change in mood that affects day-to-day functioning over a specific period of time. Second, there must be a loss of interest in pleasurable activities. Symptoms include problems with thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and physiology, such as physical complaints with no apparent cause.
The DSM-IV lists a number of symptoms that have to occur for adults, and these symptoms must be present for at least two weeks. In children, the symptoms should affect at least two areas of functioning, but they will not always be present for the whole two-week time frame. Depressive, dysthymic, bipolar, and cyclothymic disorders make up the category of mood disorders and will be explained more in depth later. For now, just know that there is a direct correlation between these problems and depression.
Personality Disorders
According to the DSM-IV, the general diagnostic criteria for personality disorders are an “enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture.” This pattern is exhibited in two or more of the following areas:
Cognition (ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events)
Affectivity (the range, intensity, ability, and appropriateness of emotional response)
Interpersonal functioning
Impulse control
Alert!
Do not attempt to diagnose a personality disorder in your child! It is a complicated problem and one that must be tackled by professionals. Labeling this in someone will have lifelong consequences as it is felt he will never completely be free of it and therefore sees himself as damaged goods.
This pattern of interacting with one's world must be pervasive and inflexible across a broad range of situations. In addition, the pattern leads to significant impairment of functioning in social, occupational, or other significant areas of functioning. Individuals with personality disorders have had this pattern since at least adolescence or early childhood. Last, the pattern of behavior being exhibited cannot be accounted for by some other mental illness, substance abuse, or a medical condition.
Personality disorders tend to be difficult to treat and do not ever fully go away. With that said, you can see why this category of disorders is predictable of depression.
Alcoholism
By now everyone knows that alcohol abuse among teens is prevalent. But did you know that children as young as eight and ten are beginning to experiment with this substance? Alcohol is everywhere, even in our homes. Do not think that you must rid your home of alcohol to prevent the problem, however. Children generally learn about alcohol use in what they observe and pick up at school.
Essential
Have you heard the saying that “misery loves company”? Unfortunately, when looking at these predictors, the saying is quite accurate. If both parents and then a sibling have a history of mood or personality disorders, or alcoholism, the chances that your child will become depressed will increase.
What happens when you come home at the end of a particularly horrible day and say out loud “Boy, I sure could use a drink. This day has been a killer!”? There is a chance that if a child witnesses this enough he will learn that this is a sure-fire way of medicating stress and trouble. An adolescent is particularly vulnerable to what he sees his parents and peers doing. If it works for them, he thinks, it surely will help me. It's not an altogether false impression.
No one is suggesting that you call a halt to your intake of alcohol. What you need to remember is that alcohol is a depressant, meaning that for the most part you wind up feeling worse after a few drinks than you'd imagined. If a child sees this as a coping resource for his parents, he is more likely to try it himself. Using a substance that acts as a depressant over a period of time is very likely to cause depression.
