Are Kids Depressed or Just Unhappy?
December 23, 2004
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Treating childhood depression with antidepressant drugs has become common. However, recent reports about the hazards of these drugs in children have raised some red flags. Now, a British researcher asks whether these kids are really depressed or just unhappy.
According to Sami Timimi, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, the increase in the number of children labeled as “depressed” may have more to do with changing societal values than anything else. He points to permissive parenting, excessive pleasure-seeking among adults and kids, and profound changes in the organization of family life as factors that could lead to childhood unhappiness.
“Childhood depression has become a popular notion,” writes Timimi, noting society today is more likely to use medical terms like “depressed” to describe children who appear unsatisfied with life than more common language like “unhappy.”
He says the medical evidence for psychiatric problems in childhood, however, is not well established and could lead to mistreatment for many kids. This particularly includes treatment with antidepressant drugs, which are increasingly given to children despite research showing they have little effect in those under age 18 and may even be dangerous.
What’s the solution? Timimi calls for a multiperspective approach in both the assessment and treatment of unhappy children. Teaching kids to deal with adverse life events, helping them build on their strengths and resilience, and improving their diets, exercise, and cognitive abilities would be a better alternative to plying them with medications.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal, 2004;329:1394-1396
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