“Mom, what is depression?” your daughter asks after hearing the word spelt out.
You decide to respond with a simple, “Oh, it’s when somebody feels sad.”
We may provide this image and definition for children, but does the definition of depression really just mean somebody feels sad? No, it’s doesn’t. And we need to stop leading people to believing that it does.
T.V shows, books, and cartoons. These things portray depression as a lie too. A lot of the time it doesn’t show the real thing. Sometimes it does, but most of the time it doesn’t. Especially the kids shows, books, and cartoons. They show ‘depressed’ people as sad, quiet, and lonely. This isn’t always the case, not even close. Depression …show more content…
The real depression and the stereotype. The media that shows the real, heart wrenching depression are mostly media that gets put out toward older people. For example the movie Cyberbully. This movie shows the most real parts about depression and for some people it’s hard to watch, let alone let children watch. The Girl On The Train gives another example of someone dealing with real depression.. There’s a part in the book that the main character talks about how she feels every day. However, this example is also something that younger children can’t read. Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh shows a huge example of depression to young children. . Eeyore constantly lags around, not wanting to do anything. However, Eeyore’s behavior barely scratches the surface. There are some cases that depression can do this to a person but in other cases you can’t see the …show more content…
Would it be so bad to let them know what's real in the world? Even at the elementary school age kids deal with stress and problems with mean peers. Depression can happen at all ages. According to CDC, the third leading form of death of ages 10-25 is suicide. People need to know what to look out for. We need to know the warning signs, children included. Even if children’s amity is great, friends could suffer from depressed and they won’t know. Depression isn’t something the eye can always see. Just because there’s a smile doesn’t mean it’s a happy life. There are more signs than an unhappy act. Much more. Let them be known and let them be found.
I know as well as everybody else, that some things are scary to children and depression could be one. I also know that some things can be scary to tell children about and one could be depression. However, depression needs to be known, by everybody. What if there’s a child feeling this way, but they don’t actually know what they are feeling? Will they know too late? We need to make this word known. Depression isn’t just being sad, it’s something that is real and