Common Sense

I have read some statistics not too long ago, talking about how many teens are out there who suffer from some sort of depression.

While some degree of depression is to be expected for somebody who is maturing and learning to deal with various emotions, it can sometimes lead to things such as suicide attempts.

For those of you with teens, how do you attempt to help your kids with depression?

mari

I am not sure what can be done but I do see many parents still not even trying to talk to their kids no matter what the age is and that really upsets me being a parent more than willing to help and talk with my own kids or anyone else's'.

Common Sense

Teenagers can have a really difficult time, so it should be up to us as parents to offer up all the support that they may be needing.

We would have wanted the same thing when we were their age, even if we would have never went out and admitted it to our parents openly.

That is largely the same for our children too, I think.

Seattle_mom

I think depression is over medicated in teenagers. Teenagers are chemically inbalaced, that's the nature of puberty. But medicating it has lead to suicide attempts (and sucesses). Medication of depression is a poor science... some work for some people, and they make other people go crazy.

My brother was on antidepressants as a teen (from about 10 years and up, to current). He had an episode when he was 13 where he tried to commit suicide several times, and some other bad behaviors. It wasn't until he was in his 20s, and he went on the same medication (anafranil) and he had manic episodes that we realized it was the medication that made him suicidal and crazy.

Scary stuff.

Common Sense

I started using Anti-depressants when I was about 12 or 13 myself, and I think they did work alright for a while, but I sometimes wonder if things may have gone better, had I never taken them in the first place.

Also with all the recalls of various medications, it is scary to think you may have taken something now seen as dangerous.