Symptoms of Depression in Teenagers

Basic Tips To Help You Find Out If Your Child Suffers From Teen Depression. The spike in cases of teen depression all over the world has been a matter of concern among parents for good reason. Mental illnesses like depression and anxiety can be debilitating and brutal in their intensity. Teenage is the time of maximum emotional susceptibility, so, it’s critical that parents know the following signs of teen depression.

Spell Duration

The most important symptom of teen depression is how long each spell lasts. Mood swings are an expected and necessary part of teenage life. However, a depressed teen will typically exhibit the same attitude over an extended period of time. Depressed teenagers have sustained spells of aggression or any of the following symptoms in this article. If your troubled teen appears to sustain a foul mood for more than 2-3 days at a stretch, take note. Then, keep an eye out to see if it was a one-time issue or whether it repeats over time.

Aches and Pain

Teen depression has been linked with various kinds of physical pain in the body. Which one causes the other is not known yet, and the connection between depression and pain is still fuzzy. All we know is that the two often occur together. If you feel like your teenager complains a lot about various aches and pains, start keeping a record. This will help you find out if you need to be concerned or if it’s okay to let it go.

Difficulty Concentrating and Making Decisions

You will need to develop a lot of patience and perseverance to deal with teen depression because it’s tricky to identify signs like these. Rebelliousness is a part of normal teenage behaviour, so your child might be abrupt, rude and even make reckless decisions. Such behaviour is not necessarily a symptom of teen depression by itself, but if it’s caused by an inability to focus or decide, it could be so.

Memory Problems

One of the most obvious signs is if your teen forgets too many things too often. Forgetting obligations, fuzzy memory of incidents, and forgetting important events like birthdays could all be symptoms of depression-related memory loss. Like almost every other symptom on this list, this is not definitive proof of depression by itself. However, if it occurs along with a majority of common signs of teen depression, you should definitely be concerned.

Apathy and Social Withdrawal

Depression often causes its victims to block out all kinds of emotions in an attempt to stop feeling the sadness. Accordingly, a depressed teenager may start seeming apathetic, meaning, he or she will stop showing concern or interest in anything. A very significant sign of teen depression is if they start withdrawing from their friends and preferring to be alone. This is often considered normal teenage behaviour, but normally, teenagers will prefer the company of friends over family. Withdrawing from all kinds of company is not a good sign. This includes not making friends in the first place, too.

Addictions & Drop in Academic Performance

The first part may be tough to catch on to, but the latter is fairly difficult to miss. Even if they have always been academically average, a drop in your child’s grades during teenage is bad. Make sure you keep an eye on their performance but do so without being judgemental. If you tend to pass judgements, they might lie and dealing with teenage lying can be very tough. Teen depression is further linked to addictions as well. Addiction to tobacco smoking, alcohol, drug abuse and some forms of teenage self-harm are all symptoms of depression in teenagers.

Teen depression is tough to spot, but parents are every teenagers’ best chance at dealing with it healthily. If you suspect that your teen may be depressed, follow a few easy steps to help you know for sure. The best way to deal with teenage depression as a parent is to stay emotionally close to your child. That way their feelings of loneliness can be mitigated and they’ll know they can confide in you. It makes the healing process much smoother and easier on both, parents as well as their teenage children.