Why do so many young people suffer depression?

[alicebear87]

Seems that more and more young people are suffering from depression and anxiety.

Why do you think this is?

[JonnyBoy12]

Because they don't know about AnswerBank, perhaps?

[alicebear87]

Ha perhaps so!

Just wondering if youngsters are more open about it now or if it's actually on the increace and why that may be

[kweenii]

Young people are under lots of stress and pressure these days. Peers, schools/colleges, work and family problems get us down. Sometimes it balls down to the fact thatg we feel we have nobody to talk to. Sometimes we feel nobody will listen and sometimes it's that we think if we tell people how we feel, they will just dismiss it as ''being a stroppy teenager'' or just being silly.

[andy-hughes]

I think we have a generation of parents who have no parenting skills.

Part of the job of a parent is to affirm a child consistently - tell them that you love them, that they are valuabloe, and good and worthwhile.

So many families these days are distanced from each other - parents and children spend little if any time together just being in each others' company.

If you are there to listen to your child's nonsense as a tot, you will be there to listen to their angst as a teenager - or not.

[sqad617]

Parenting skills....what are they? In the 40's&50s the term "parenting skills" was never mentioned, you just got on with it the best way you could. Poor pay, husband probably at war, you had to go out to earn money....parenting skills?..unheard of. Now, you can buy books, DVD's on "being a parent"......perhaps that is the problem....we HAVE parenting skills.
As long as I know, teenagers have ALWAYS been stroppy, nothing new there then.
Peer pressure....now 95% come out of school with some qualification, unemployment has been low over the past 2decades....what pressure? At University, you can jump from course to course "willy nilly".....nobody fails...what pressure?
Suicide rates have more than trebled in the past 20yrs in teenagers, more common in males than in female, although depression is more common in female teenagers than males.

Why?..........I have no idea.

[alicebear87]

Sqad, perhaps part of the problem is this lack of structure. We wanted more freedom and now we don't know what to do with it?? I know when I finished university the lack of purpose freaked me out!

Just speculating...

[sqad617]

alice, you may have a point. We had never heard of the term "gap year" so pleased to get your exams and get to savour University life and all that it offered. When one qualified, one couldn't wait to start work and earn some money.

Now teenagers are qualified with qualifications that very few employers need.....so what do the do?

Just to put things straight, i was a lousy parent but my kids have done as well as those with "loving" parents."

Drugs, common now among teenagers, must have an effect on depression and I include alcohol in that.

[Velvetee]

Could be excessive alcohol consumption from an early age, not to mention the drugs too. Then there's great pressure on them to succeed in life and consumerism makes them want unattainable commodities.

[joko]

there are theories that its do do with more and more additives in foods, mercury in fillings, fluoride in water, etc etc ...there are a great many things that we do that we dont really undertsand or see the longterm effects...

[dot.hawkes]

My daughter was off work for 6 months last year with depression and had to give up her job because she could not be given a date to return by her GP. In December she was referred and the putcome of that consultation was a futher 12 months of incapacity.
the reason she is still suffering from depression is because she lost 4 close friends in the space of 8 months in 2007, we have all tried to help her get better, but leaving her to herself to feel better has been the best way to deal with it.
It has been an awful time and she does seem to improve and then she has a set back. the person she saw in december must have recognised that it is going to take time.

[dot.hawkes]

It's not about parenting, no matter how good a mother i am i could not have prepared her or protected her from the loss of any of her friends. It's not about alcohol or drugs either, she is on medication and she does have some alcohol but not to excess, it is just because she has a wide circkle of friends in a small village, she has attended more funerals in her 24 years than i have in my 53.