How To Help A Teenager With Depression: 5 Practical Tips
Adolescence is a turbulent time in which a series of psychological disorders can appear, such as depression.
In this situation, parents suffer from not being able to help their children as much as they would like. For this, here we will see a series of tips on how to help a teenager with depression that will help families face this psychological phenomenon.
Many parents wonder how to help a teenager with depression but, to do so, the first thing we must do is delve into the very definition of this pathology and the implications it entails.
Depression is a mental disorder characterized by a constant state of sadness and apathy and which may have its origin in a specific event or in a collection of experiences and characteristics of the person that have caused depression to be triggered.
Once we are aware of the situation we are facing, we can apply all the advice gathered here to be able to deal with the problem in an effective way, providing our child with all the resources he needs to overcome the state in which, Unfortunately, it has gone under. Some people will find more useful in some specific tips while others will find more useful in the rest, since each case is personal and unique.
The important thing is to have a range of alternatives to find new methods of help or some complementary ones to which we have already been applying, so that each person can select one, several or even all, depending on their needs. Let’s, therefore, begin to develop each of the tips on this list to know how to help a teenager with depression.
1. Be aware of the problem
It is evident that all people have better days and worse days when it comes to mood, and you can even have more or less long streaks in which sadness, happiness or other emotions predominate. This is even more accentuated in adolescents, who, due to all the changes they are undergoing on a physical and psychological level, are more likely to experience these mood swings sometimes very sudden and explosive.
So, as parents, we may be used to seeing similar situations with our teenager and we run the risk of the situation getting worse and not knowing how to give it the importance it deserves. This can happen, first of all, because we are not able to realize that what is happening to our child is something more than a simple episode of sadness. But something more serious can happen, and that is that we realize the situation but do not give it the importance it deserves, thinking that it will pass.
And one of the problems that psychological disorders entail is that Many times we make the mistake of thinking that they will resolve themselves. And, although sometimes they can subside due to the person’s own resilience, it is logical that they are treated in the same way as would be done with an organic problem, such as a bruise, a broken bone, a digestive problem or any other problem. Hence the importance of the following advice on how to help a teenager with depression.
2. Seek professional help
As we anticipated, another of the keys to being able to face a situation as serious as that of a depressive state in our adolescent son, is to assess his condition as necessary, and for this the most sensible option is to turn to a professional, expert knowledgeable about this problem, such as a psychologist or psychiatrist.
Thanks to your knowledge will be able to evaluate whether the situation your child is experiencing is compatible with that of depression and therefore will be able to propose the appropriate treatment.
It is true that, due to different circumstances, some people do not request psychological help while suffering from depression, either because they are unaware of the functions of this figure, or because of the social stigma that still exists today regarding mental health, or because they prefer to explore other alternatives. either because they do not have the means to access said help, etc. Each situation is very personal and each person’s decisions cannot be judged lightly.
What is true is that in some cases depression can be overcome without the help of a psychologist, but with their help we will make it easier for the process to be less extended over time, so that the person acquires the tools as soon as possible to advance in their condition. and improve, and that the impact on your life is as small as possible. Hence, one of the best tips on how to help a teenager with depression is to find a professional who will give them the guidelines required to overcome the problem as soon as possible.
Unconditional support is something that parents should offer their children in any situation, but even more so when it comes to a topic as delicate as psychopathology. and depression is.
A person in a state of depression is like a shipwrecked person floating adrift in the sea. You may get lucky and find a board to hold on to and reach land soon, but it will certainly be easier if you have someone to reach out and rescue you.
Support is always important, but it is even more so if it comes from reference figures, personalized in this case by the father, mother or legal guardian. Due to the characteristics of depression, the adolescent may be reluctant to receive help that they prefer to be alone or that they even get angry when we try to care about them and know what they need, but it is important that the support does not stop, even if the response is not what we would like at first.
Therefore, if we think about how to help a teenager with depression, It is essential to keep your hand outstretched at all times and give our son all the resources he may need to, little by little, overcome his pathological state of mind until he definitively overcomes depression. The role of parental support is fundamental in this task and we must be aware of this to make the most of this valuable resource.
4. Repair the causes
The next point would refer to the repair of those situations that would be causing the problem. This Tip on How to Help a Teen with Depression It may be fulfilled in some cases, but not in all , since we have already seen that this disorder does not always have a specific origin, or at least it is not as visible as we might think. For this reason, we must always adapt to what we know and the guidelines that the professional therapist gives us in this regard.
However, if it is evident that there is a situation that is disturbing our child’s mood to the point of causing depression, we must act on it. The cases can be very varied, and can involve anything from problems with their circle of peers, unwanted situations at school (such as bullying, or difficulties in studies), grieving due to the divorce of their parents, the death of a family member. nearby, or many other situations.
Obviously, some events will be more susceptible to repair than others, but the important thing is what we do about them, making sure the situation has the least possible impact on our child and, above all, give you the tools to express how you feel about it what their needs are and, as we saw in the previous point, accompany them throughout this path, until they manage to overcome it, thanks to all the help received and above all to their own work in this regard.
5. Support from your circle
Although parental help is vital, adolescents often They have an easier time listening to their own friends.
Therefore, we must use this tool and also ask those people who make up our child’s closest circle of friends for their collaboration, since they may have more capacity to “deliver the message” and be closer to him, and it is that many times adolescents tend to maintain a communicative distance from their parents.
In this way we will achieve two things, firstly, our son will have more people supporting him, which is what he needs in his situation, and secondly, we will have powerful allies to improve serving as a communication link between him and us, so bidirectional, and therefore it is not inconsiderable advice on how to help a teenager with depression.
