Talk to your kids about depression

Depression affects everyone, according to the CDC’s 2022 Children’s mental health report, in the United States nearly 3 million children between the ages of 3 to 17 have been affected by depression. Since depression is one of the major reasons that might cause suicide, and the rate of child suicide has been climbing yearly. It became a serious topic that has to be discussed.

Try to explain that depression is a common mental health condition to older children when you are opening the conversation. It is crucial to emphasize that it is never a person’s fault, that it can happen to any one of us, just like other chronic health conditions such as diabetes. Next, when you think your child may have depression, you can go through the list of symptoms with them and ask them which one they felt like they have been experiencing. When your child tries to share about their experience of depression, put in some effort to listen without your judgment and avoid jumping to give your advice. In the end, you can reassure them that many people who have treatments have experienced long periods of being symptom-free.

In contrast, since younger children may not be able to understand sophisticated concepts, try to link depression to emotional experiences such as when they felt sad or blue. You could describe depression as a sad feeling that never fades away. Using analogies when making this conversation about depression works too, analogies such as “dark rain cloud”, and “outside is in the sunshine, but it’s always raining above them” could help them understand better. In the end, reassure them that there is nothing to feel bad or embarrassed about depression, and with some treatment, they can feel better again, just like when they caught a cold before.

Finally, as intimidating as to start a conversation about this topic with your child, there is a lot of guidance that is available online. There are some great resources that have released their own guides about depression for children. Resources such as:

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Hsin-Yu Huang

UConn KIDS Research Assistant