Jul 16, 2002 3 min read

Childhood is no time to be depressed, according to Dr. Frederic Flach, author of “The Secret Strength of Depression.” Unfortunately, too often it is. Practically from the time they’re born, children can be sad and irritable, feel lost and hopeless and become disinterested in the very activities they once enjoyed, Flach said. Their confidence and self-esteem can be undermined. They can fail in school. They can even commit suicide.

“Children are no more immune to life’s tragedies than anyone else,” Flach said. “In fact, they are particularly vulnerable – still small, in many ways helpless, naive, lacking in experience and coping skills that adults have hopefully acquired.

“Parents can be cruel and abusive,” he added. “They can jump ship, abandoning everyone aboard. They can overprotect their children and make them too dependent. They can abuse alcohol and drugs. They can get sick and die young. Under any one or more of such circumstances as these, children get depressed.

But, Flach said there is a difference between normal depression and clinical depression. When being depressed lingers on and has a significant effect on a child’s behavior, parents must start to consider clinical depression. This is also true when a child seems to be depressed in the absence of any apparent cause.

Manifestations of Depression in Children

Children manifest depression in some ways like adults and in other ways unique to children. The onset of clinical depression may be sudden or gradual, but it usually involves a noticeable change in behavior.

A six-year-old boy is no longer interested in playing with his friends. He is sleeping terribly. He grows increasingly lethargic and would spend all day Saturday in bed if his mother allowed it.

An eight-year-old girl is having an unusually difficult time studying and has become short-tempered and visibly sad at home. She gorges herself on cake and chocolate ice cream and complains of stomach aches for which the pediatrician can find no physical explanation. She is restless and sometimes frankly agitated. Her parents can hear her stomping around her room upstairs late into the night. Even though no one knows it, she thinks about killing herself by taking a fistful of her mother’s Valium.

Every depressed child is unique, in his or her own way. While it is important not to read problems into the behavioral changes of normal, healthy youngsters, it is no less important to be ready to recognize when a child may be clinically depressed, what may be causing this change in mood, and what to do about it.

Frederic Flach, M.D., K.H.S., is an internationally recognized psychiatrist and author whose highly acclaimed books include “The Secret Strength of Depression,” “Putting the Pieces Together Again,” “A New Marriage, A New Life,” Resilience,” “The Secret Strength of Angels” and “Faith, Healing and Miracles.” In 1996, he was awarded the Maxine Mason award by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). He has appeared on numerous radio and television programs across the country, including “Today,” “Good Morning America,” “CBS This Morning,” ‘Good Day New York” and “Donahue.”