How can 4% of preschoolers be clinically depressed!?

Question

According to this page:
http://www.upliftprogram.com/depression_stats.html
4% of preschoolers are clinically depressed, and they are a growing market for anti-depressants!

Does this not seem outrageous? What's going on?

Answer 1

When she was 8 years old I took my older daughter to see a child psychologist. She was depressed. She was having bodily symptoms of anxiety and depression. She had a lack of energy. She looked depressed. That was over twenty years ago. She has had periodic depressions since, but does well on antidepressants and psychotherapy. So does her younger sister, who didn't seem depressed until she was a teenager, and both of her parents, one of whom is a clinical psychologist, while I have retired from being a neurologist.

My daughter didn't need an antidepressant at age 8. The psychologist played with her and got her to express various feelings about her parents arguing and the difficulty of her younger sister being the aggressive one while she was the sensitive child, always had been from when she would spit up if jostled as a baby. With that my daughter's bodily symptoms stopped, and her happiness returned. This therapy got her through most of high school. She can still talk about the benefits of it today, just as she can talk about being amazed when she started Celexa in college and suddenly no longer feared that someone might break into her home.

Had her childhood therapy not worked so well, I would have fully supported treating her with an antidepressant. I suspect it would have worked then as it works for her now. What shouldn't it have worked?

It's not just that 4% of preschoolers are clinically depressed as my 8 year-old daughter was clinically depressed. It's that every age cohort in our country has had an increasing rate of depression over the past several decades. Why is this?

The biggest reason is certainly better diagnosis. My daughter's pediatrician knew that her symptoms, such as a globus hystericus, were emotional. So did both her parents. How many parents in the present would be so educated and accepting? In the past would even the pediatrician have the confidence to say my daughter was depressed?

When I was depressed as a teenager, no one thought I might be depressed, even though it was my sensitivity that my daughter inherited, from birth. No one talked about depression. Someone very well read knew what melancholia and manic depression were. Some celebrities had nervous breakdowns, whether that was about booze or something else. It is not a deterioration in our culture that most of us are not as ignorant about mental illness as people were in the fifties.

So how many of you who give flippant answers or express conspiracy theories on this subject have raised children? If you do, will you resist anyone telling you that your 8 year-old or even your preschool child is depressed? I bet some of you will. That makes me suspect that the real number for preschool depression is even higher than 4%. I predict it will go even higher before leveling off.

The genetics of this and the neurochemistry of stress have been around for a very long time, even if it will only be later this century that we understand those well. They start before birth, not at puberty. Our society hasn't been the most therapeutic about this - be strong, follow the rules, stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about. Throughout my career I saw people with neurological symptoms that were clearly emotional. Not many took kindly to my telling them that. Plenty would go doctor shopping in response or use alternative therapies or just suffer and bad mouth doctors. Those who didn't live with their emotions coming out in their body would self-medicate with alcohol or other behaviors. They would learn the mind-altering power of oneupsmanship, being controlling, and being conformists, whether conforming to the establishment or some counter-culture. Some even became the sort of physician or mental health professional who preys on his or her patients. If you look for psychopathology in the history of our culture you can find plenty of it. It didn't start recently.

Look at how many questions on Y!A are from moody teenagers. Many are afraid their parents won't understand. Some have talked to their parents and know for a fact they don't understand. Their parents have the same denial of the concept of depression as one can see in the answers to such questions whenever they come up. Some claim everyone gets depressed, which is using "depressed" in a different way than it applies to those 4% of preschoolers. Some give advice that doesn't involve psychologists and psychiatrists. It's the blind leading the blind.

No, it's not outrageous that 4% of preschoolers are clinically depressed. Do you know any of them? They're not evenly scattered among all preschoolers. Do you know any physical and mental conditions they might have contributed to their depression? Do you know this for those of greater age in the same situation? It may not be practical for everyone to learn this firsthand, but at least people could listen to those who do work with depressed people firsthand before you shoot your mouth off with flippant answers and conspiracy theories.

That wouldn't be human nature, though. Everything we see in what people do is human nature. What's healthy about that, and what is pathological? Time will tell. I'm convinced depression is pathological, not some misdiagnosis of normal. There's more of it now at every age because it is correctly being unmasked. People will resist that. People have been resisting that for a long time. But everyone alive today will die off and be replaced by people who are somewhat less prejudiced.

Death cures all things, including depression, with 100% effectiveness. If someone wants to wait for that treatment, it's a free country, but there are many who get treatment earlier, even as preschoolers. I'm glad for that.

Answer 2

If someone is constantly and subtley undermining you, your confidence will go and you could end up depressed. It can be difficult to spot in the early stages of this kind of relationship. When you do notice you can question your own judgement because it sounds a bit nuts! It can help to talk it over with someone who's not involved and trained how to deal with it - not your mates! And if you think that's whats happening then you need to decide what to do. Challenging this kind of behaviour doesn't make the other person change, most of the time. They probably already know what they're doing is wrong. Ending the relationship and moving on is usually the only way forwards. On the other hand you could already be depressed and that ould be why you feel bad about the relationship - thats why its best to get expert advice. Get yourself some help and support, and good luck.

Answer 3

We have to see what each of those children's situation is. Maybe parents divorced. Also many children use to have loving devoted mothers, but now they all work and drop them off to someone else to take care of them. This is nonsense and no doubt would cause a child depression. That Child came into the whom of that mother to have her love them not God knows who substitute. Next question is, do the children eat a lot of sugar or a lot of processed foods and microwaved? There is MSG in a lot of foods today that is under 17 different Code names in the US. This is known to cause depression, forgetfulness, all kinds of mental, emotional and physical problems. (Especially stomach related) I would say it is based on diet and parents situation. They just want to drug everyone instead find the cause and try to illuminate that. Meds can cause long term problems in many ways, and frankly the people I know who take them are still very depressed. The people have to find the cause not try to drug, drug, drug. Look at the life of the mother, if she is a wreck most likely her children will be too. And the Father as well, Is he available for the kids or does he just work, work, work, like the mom. No Wonder no one feels loved anymore.

Answer 4

For the development of a successful pharmaceutical remedy, there needs to be an established, or a created, economically viable population to treat. The USA is alone in media pharmaceutical direct marketing. European nations allow the physicians to treat the patient after appropriate consultations. Our 'patients' run screaming to the doctors requesting prescriptions to treat symptoms advertised on television!

Answer 5

Just an opinion, but I think they are depressed because they spend so little time with their parents, they are not sure they are loved. So many kids come from single parent families, they miss the parent they don't live with, or they may not even know their other parent.
We buy, buy, buy these kids stuff instead of giving them what they really want and need, our time and attention, and the assurance they are loved.
Anti depressants for little kids is a frightening thought. I think more hugs and kisses would go a lot farther. Just a thought.

Answer 6

Oh. My. Gosh. I'm as shocked as you. I always thought that depression was for teens and grownups, and I thought it was caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. But it looks like this imbalance is starting to be triggered earlier in life! What could it be?

Answer 7

I disagree with that stat. These days, medicine has become: diagnose someone with a label (no matter what the problem is) and put a pill in their mouth. For example, I hear tell that thousands of kids are diagnosed with ADD when in reality they simply aren't disciplined. It sounds like there are tons of preschoolers out there who are acting dramatic or may have a sad stint here and there (like all kids) and are automatically assumed to have the disease. I say- people are just labeling them so they that they can provide an easy fix and say that they did something proactive.

Answer 8

Marketeers are trying to sell drugs to kids. I do not hesitate to call this evil though I myself am a marketeer by training. Those pills influence the body's development! Those little bodies and minds are growing!

That said, I would think that parents who try too hard to make them perfectly perfect (as if the real baby Einstein had DVDs to make him smarter) and heredity can be factors.

Answer 9

I think it is outrageous. I think part of it is drug companies wanting to make a buck so they get doctor's to prescribe all kind of things and then they get kickbacks. I also think it is a reflection of this society and parents not teaching kids what is important in life.

Isn't it odd that you can go to a third world country and find happy kids living almost in squalor? No, I don't think we should allow that nor do I think we should live that way, but we can learn from that as a lesson what is really important.

The ME, ME, ME culture has to end!

EDIT: Yes it is generally a chemical imbalance but it is triggered by other things.

Answer 10

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. In this case, I would guess that someone has been messing with the definition of "clinically depressed." When I was young, that was something only used about adults.