- DEPRESSION -
Adolescent depression
Be alert to the potential manifestations of depression in adolescents, resolve the pain in time, and listen to the child's voice.
PART.01
Raising a child with an anxiety disorder is like embarking on an unknown journey. No matter how much we think we know about anxiety, we still find it difficult to understand our children's various manifestations of depression. Every time they look at their children anxious, but they have no way of knowing what pushes them to the brink of collapse, many people secretly hope that they can hold a knob to control their emotions, and twisting it can help the child reduce anxiety.
Dealing with anxious children can often be irritating, especially when they place additional emotional demands on their parents. I remember many years ago, I attended a parent conference at the junior college where my eldest son was studying, and we were listening to a visiting psychologist talk about the growth and development of adolescents. Suddenly, a question popped up in the auditorium of 200 people. "Madame," said a desperate voice, "my son is in adolescence and has stopped talking to me lately, what should I do?" "There was a commotion among the parents. Several people turned to look at the lady who asked the question, and the atmosphere suddenly became tense. As the psychologists on stage began to explain the needs of teenagers for private space, the atmosphere gradually eased.
This incident made me realize that depressed children can also cause emotional fluctuations in their parents. Some of my colleagues' children suffer from depression, and they tell me that watching children get trapped in invisible pain and anxiety is also suffering from themselves. Recently, some mothers told me that they were worried that their children who were going to school were too anxious and had suicidal thoughts. This gave me the idea of writing a book for parents of depressed children.
As parents, we all want our children to become jackie chans. But when we find that our children are suffering, struggling, and eager to be understood by their parents, they will feel the same despair as their children. Gradually, we realize that we should treat our children as ordinary people, understand that they are just groping for how to deal with their own suffering, and desire to connect with those close to us and express love. Unfortunately, as parents, children sometimes occupy all our attention, and we build a safe shelter for our children's emotional healing and healthy growth, but their behavior frequently breaks our hearts. As a result, sometimes we get confused and don't know how to understand our child's inner struggles.
PART.02
When I was planning to write this book, someone asked me to pay attention to a story. The report mentions an 11-year-old elementary school student who chose to commit suicide after failing the first exam. Instead of facing his parents' disappointment, he chose to jump out of the bedroom window on the 17th floor of hdbed houses and end his life. It is said that in the first four years of elementary school, his mother always expected him to score at least 70 points (out of 100 points) in each subject. Less than 70 points, the mother would hit his hand with a cane, each missing point. Conversely, if he behaves well, his mother will reward him with a gift. Unfortunately, this approach ended up being tragic.
On May 12, 2016, the boy got his midterm exam transcripts and became anxious when he found that his English, Chinese, Advanced Chinese, and Mathematics scored only 50, 53.8, 12, and 20.5, respectively. He told his mother that the test score was "moderate" and wanted to pass the test. In return, his mother bought him a kite as a gift. Four days later, he got his science paper, which was only 57.5. As the deadline for schools to confirm grades for parents approaches, children become more and more nervous. On May 18, the child was found dead under the apartment building with multiple fractures on his body. The mother was miserable, she thought she didn't have too high expectations for her child, and she didn't understand why the child chose to commit suicide.
This story disturbs me. I realized that it might be very inappropriate to treat children as little adults and to discipline them according to the adult code of conduct. If this young life is to be loved by its parents, it must meet certain conditions, and it must meet the standards set by its parents from the perspective of their own interests. The child's stress is invisibly magnified. Children cannot understand why they must make some achievements to avoid suffering from their parents, or why they must feel ashamed and not be treated well by their parents. On the contrary, the child is well aware that every time he is punished, his human dignity and the right to be treated well by his parents are deprived. After much deliberation, I decided to use the theme of "unconditional love" as the starting point for this book.
As we strive to create an environment in which our children thrive, we need to recognize the important role that parental love plays in building children's self-esteem. We also need to realize that in today's competitive social environment and harsh education system, children are often very sensitive to failure and prone to low morale.
When I started writing this book, I got to know a young man who was suffering from depression. She was an adopted child living in a wealthy family. Despite all her material possessions, she felt that her adoptive parents were not listening to her heart fully and that she did not feel loved. She was willing to believe that the root of her mental predicament lay in being abandoned by her biological parents. After the depression worsened, she chose to cut her wrist to relieve it.
Listening to this story, I further refined the central theme of the book, in addition to love, but also to listen to the voices of depressed children, and learn to recognize depression. After all, parents are the most influential role models in their children's hearts. The way parents understand things, the way they solve problems, and the attitude they have towards challenges can all affect their children. If parents can better understand their child's inner world, the child will know how to reciprocate and grow into a more compassionate and stronger individual.
In today's fast-paced society, it is not difficult to understand that readers tend to choose easy-to-read books and quickly find solutions to problems in the shortest time and with the least amount of energy. Therefore, I have kept the length of the book within reasonable limits, but the function is not limited to a guide, but to give the reader an insight into the root causes of adolescent depression and how to intervene to avoid misfortune. Readers will understand that helping children find ways to cope with life's challenges in the process of raising children will be an important lesson in self-growth.
Although the inner world of human beings is extremely complex, this book will try to use an easy-to-understand way of expressing it. If necessary, some of the respondents' records will also be selected. They all suffered from depression during adolescence and are now fully recovered and happy to share their experiences and challenges.