Depressed Children and Suicide Risk
Depressed children are not uncommonly seen in grade school.
A child with sad eyes, nine year old, Mary Costa was
referred to counseling for suspected child depression
by her third grade teacher with her mother's permission.
Mary's sweet smile and well-kempt appearance belied the
rage and child depression lurking beneath her exterior.
During individual school counseling, Mary's mother said
that after the divorce Mary became a child with sad eyes.
Months later, after visitations were arranged with her father,
she'd return and soon fly into rages where she would beat
up her younger brother, refuse to obey her mother, and
fight with her peers at school. This had been going on for
over two years. Worse yet was the fact that Mary told her
mother she wanted to die.
Mary's mother was shocked by the whole affair because Mary
had been sad eyed and quiet for months after the divorce
with no sign of rage until now. It is not unusual for
depressed children to exhibit these extremes of behavior.
Moreover, Mary now refused to do her home work. Mary's
mother divorced her father because he used drugs. She
suspected he still did and wondered what Mary might be
exposed to while visiting her father. Mary's father
claimed he'd stopped using drugs. Mary refused to talk
about her father with her mother and during individual
school counseling. Secrecy, such as this, although not
unusual in depressed children, can prove a hindrance to
future therapeutic success.
Mary vacillated between her sad eyed state and raging
style state, with the raging states becoming more prevalent
after visiting her father.
Hence, I organized for a mental health worker to determine
if it was safe for Mary to visit her father. The mental
health worker visited the father's home the following week,
only to find that he'd skipped town without paying his rent.
In individual school counseling, during the following
year, Mary reported she'd heard nothing from her father.
This only added to her child depression, and decreased
the possibility of a positive result. Those sad eyes
became more prevalent. Depressed children can prove
challenging.
Although during individual school therapy, Mary proved
sweet, cooperative, and easy to work with, the sad eyes
remained, however. This lack of improvement was
verified with continued misbehavior at home and at school.
Moreover, psychological testing indicated she might be
depressed. Due to this information, her suicide threat,
and the long standing nature of Mary's suspected
child depression, she was referred to a doctor for a medical
evaluation. The doctor had evaluated many depressed
children in the past.
After speaking with Mary's family, evaluating the
information from the school counselor and doing her own
physical and mental examination, the doctor decided to put
Mary on medication, on a trial basis, for six months.
What's more, Mary's teacher enrolled her in a special
school program where she could, not only get help during
school hours doing her school work, but get help after
school with her home work, while waiting for a ride home
from her mother. Depressed children can be helped by
decreasing the stress in their lives, like burdensome
schoolwork.
Mary was seen in individual school counseling during this
time, and I'd, also, referred her for family counseling
through an organization that charged the family on a
sliding scale, according to income, since Mary's family
qualified for low income support. Programs, like this one
have proven quite helpful to families with depressed
children.
At first, after commencing medication, Mary showed little
or no improvement. The sad eyed state persevered. However,
by the end of the first month, her mother reported that she
wasn't fighting as much with her little brother. By the end
of the second month, Mary's teacher reported that her
misbehavior in school was much reduced and that she
was beginning to play like other happy children.
By this time, in individual school counseling, Mary
reported in a happier mood. There even appeared to be a
twinkle in those once always downcast, sad eyes. Still the
sad eyes remained not far below the surface. Over the
next year there occurred a number of relapses, followed
by short term improvements, followed by more relapses into
depression and rage. Mary's medication would need to be
adjusted and readjusted and different medications tried. With
severely depressed children, relapses and medication
changes are notunusual.
Mary's depression would prove to be no easy one to resolve
and is still under treatment, with the ultimate result
still in question. Long term untreated depressed children,
like Mary, together with possible serious child abuse, can
be very difficult to treat due, not only to it's severity,
but the early age of occurrence, and the fact that
treatment was started late. This is why early treatment,
as soon as possible, or "sooner" is emphasized by this
website.
When in doubt, don't take a chance with your child's
future, but refer depressed children to individual school
counseling, a medical doctor, psychologist, marriage and
family therapist, or to a qualified health care
professional in your community.
A summary of the main points involved in individual school
counseling of depressed children are:
- Sweet smiles and, even, good short term behavior can
mask serious depression.
- Depression, where the child misbehaves, is easer to
suspect than the hidden type and, therefore, more likely
to be treated.
- The fact that treatment was started late, that the
father was, perhaps, a contributing factor to the
depression, that he'd disappeared from Mary's life, that
the depression proved severe and had begun early in
Mary's life, all caused the prospects for a positive
result to be guarded.
- Cases like Mary's, often, require a coordinated
community effort by teachers, counselors, parents, and
doctors to be successful.
- Financial help is available for those who cannot,
normally, afford the usual fees for therapy.
- More than anything else, Mary's story emphasizes the
need for early referral. When in doubt, see that your
child, the sad child, receives individual school
counseling, or at least referral to the appropriate health
care professional for a child depression evaluation.
-
Play is the opposite of child depression.
Therefore,
encourage your child to play.
-
Depressed children, often, have difficulty learning.
Read, here, how parenting can improve positive
emotions and learning.
For treatment of depression with vitamins, link here.
For information related to individual school counseling,
click here for the child counseling page
and here for the
parenting advice page.
Link here, for the parenting healthy children home page.
|
