Shrinking family and play time depresses kids as young as five

MUMBAI: Blame it on poor diet or social skills among today's children, but depression is catching them younger.

Ahead of the World Health Day on Friday, city psychiatrists said that the age of depression among children has been steadily decreasing in recent times. Today, children as young as five years of age have begun to show symptoms of clinical depression.

Stating that this has been the trend for the past five years, psychiatrist Dr

Harish Shetty

said parents should be able to spot depression among children.

“A way to detect depression is to notice if the child is extremely clingy or suffers from pain in the head or is not able to sleep well,“ he said.

There are several reasons for this unhealthy trend. For starters, interactions for to day's children are limited to their schools, time with their mothers and tuitions. “In this process, they don't smile or play. The family's emotional contact time has decreased because of which a human mind has become a pressure cooker,“ said Dr Shetty.

Psychiatrist Dr

Hofeza Bhinderwala

offers a different reason for the emergence of depression among children. “In the past, we noticed physical bullying as one of the reasons, but today social media has worsened this.“

Dr

Bhinderwala

said children are trying to be popular on social media and this adds to the stress in their life, triggering depression.

Another contributory factor is poor activity levels among children.

“Primarily, children are reluctant to participate in outdoor activities and procrastinate a lot. Some child ren might respond by being hostile while some might be very quiet,“ he added.

Psychiatrist Dr

Anisha Jain

recalled the case of a sixyear-old girl who suffered from depression because of a row between her parents.

“She had severe anxiety. She preferred to be alone and stay quiet most of the time.She stopped playing or asking for her favourite food,“ she said. “The child would no longer ask her mother to take her to different places. That's when the mother decided to come to me.“

Jain said parents should make attempts to strike a rapport with their children.

“It is important that parents don't neglect children who are going through depression. They should accept the reality and help the child get over it.“

The key is get the child to “connect“ with real people.