Depression is a common, serious, repetitive disease that seriously reduces the child’s social relationships and school performance, but responds well to treatment and can become chronic if not treated, or may result in suicide. . The increase in suicide attempts in children and young people in the last 30 years has played an active role in directing the attention to these age groups. Depression is a very common disorder in children and teenagers. It is seen in one out of every hundred children in pre-school age, in two out of every hundred children in school age children, and in 8 out of every hundred children in adolescence. This means that an average of 1-2 children in each class are at risk of depression.
It has been observed that most of the depressions that start in childhood continue in childhood and adulthood. It is accepted that the earlier this disorder starts, the more effective hereditary factors are. In addition, it is thought that the earlier the disease starts, the more negatively it will affect the development and the more negative effects will be because the number of years that the person will spend with the disease will increase. For this reason, parents and teachers have great duties in terms of early detection of this disease. It may be easier to notice if the symptoms start suddenly in a child who has not had a psychiatric disorder before, but this may be overlooked if the symptoms start insidiously.
Somatic complaints such as headache, stomachache, nausea, and fatigue are more common in depression in children than in adults.
The complaints seen in depression in children are generally as follows;
-Concentration and attention impairment
-Learning difficulties
-Thoughts of worthlessness
-Decreased self-confidence
-Excitement
-Crying quickly and frequently
-Resentment
-Decreased interest in the environment
-Feeling of loneliness
-Thought not being loved
-Decrease in academic performance
-Sleep disorders
-Unhappy facial expression
-Appetite changes
-Slow thinking
-Decision making difficulty
-Not being happy with things that he used to enjoy
-No pessimism or expectation about the future
-Decrease in playing games
-Decreased speaking
-Boredom
-Fatigue
-Decreased curiosity
-Fear of yourself
-Laughter
-Easy irritability
-Night frights
-Bed-wetting
-Frequent getting sick (due to weakened immune system)
If teachers see even a few of these symptoms in their students, they should warn the parents.
The reasons that initiate depression in children are usually the loss of a loved one, divorce of parents, incompatibility, important changes such as moving from a familiar area, hospitalization, presence of a chronic illness, inappropriate approach styles of the family (disinterested, high expectations from the child, Depression is more common in children of overly critical and overprotective families).
Grief, especially as a result of loss of someone, deprivation of mother, separation from parents, can easily turn into depression.
It is observed that depression is more common in children whose fathers died before they were 13 years old. Depression due to learning through modeling and inadequacy of parents is also common in children with severe depression in their parents.
In addition, children with problems such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, learning difficulties, bedwetting, speech difficulties, anxiety disorders are also candidates for depression due to feelings of inadequacy. For example, children who are mocked by their friends for talking or excluded for being naughty, and who are described as lazy due to learning problems may lose their self-confidence and drift into depression over time. For this reason, teachers’ observing such children, monitoring the relations between children in the classroom, educating children not to exclude each other, encouraging cooperation and sharing will facilitate the adaptation of children with difficulties. In addition, creating environments that will highlight the positive aspects of children, giving them responsibilities they can overcome and honoring them when they succeed will be beneficial in increasing children’s self-confidence. It is necessary to create environments where children can express themselves by meeting one-on-one, to enable them to communicate with the guidance teacher so that they can get help, to inform the families, and to direct the family and the child to a specialist by cooperating with the guidance teacher if necessary. It should be known that the treatment of the depressed child is four-legged; what the doctor will do, what the family will do, what the teacher and the guidance counselor will do, and what the child will do himself. Depression is a condition that must be corrected if treatment is possible and if it is not handled, it causes the child to be negatively affected both socially, academically and physically, reducing the quality of life.
