How to Help a Depressed Teen: 5 Practical Tips

Several tips and guidelines to give the right support to a teenager with depression.

Adolescence is a turbulent time in which a number of psychological disorders, such as depression, can appear.

In this situation, parents suffer from not being able to help their children as much as they would like. For this reason, here we will look at a series of tips on how to help an adolescent with depression that will help families to face this psychological phenomenon.

Tips on how to help a teenager with depression

Many parents wonder how to help an adolescent with depression but, for it, the first thing that we must do is to deepen in the own definition of this pathology and the implications that it takes entailed.

Depression is a mental disorder that is characterized by a constant state of sadness and apathyIt can have its origin in a specific event or in an accumulation of experiences and characteristics of the person that have caused the depression to be triggered.

Once we are aware of the situation we are facing, we will be able to apply all the advice gathered here to be able to face the problem in an effective way, providing our child with all the resources he/she needs to overcome the state in which, unfortunately, he/she has been plunged. Some people will find some advice more useful than others, as 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 to those we have already been applying, so that each person can select one, several or even all, depending on their needs. Let us, 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 obvious that everyone has better days and worse days in terms of mood, and may even have more or less long periods in which sadness, joy or other emotions predominate. This is even more accentuated in adolescents, who due to all the changes they are undergoing at a physical and psychological level are more prone to experience these mood swings, sometimes very sudden and explosive.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, in the first place, 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 we do not give it the importance it deserves, thinking that it will pass.

And it is that, one of the problems that entails the psychological disorders is that many times it is fallen in the error of thinking that they will be solved by themselves.. And, although sometimes they can remit by the own resilience of the person, the logical thing is that they are treated as it would be done with an organic problem, like a contusion, a break of a bone, a digestive problem or of any other nature. Hence the importance of the following advice on how to help a teenager with depression.

2. Seek professional help

As we were anticipating, another of the keys to be able to face such a serious situation as that of a depressive state in our teenager, is to assess his state as necessary, and for this the most sensible option is to turn to a professional, expert knowledgeable of this problem, such as a psychologist or a psychiatrist.

Thanks to their knowledge will be able to assess 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 seek 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 with respect to mental health, or because they prefer to explore other alternatives, or because they do not have the means to access such help, etc. Each situation is very personal and one cannot judge lightly the decisions of each individual..

What is certain is that in some cases it is possible to overcome a depression without the help of a psychologist but with his help we will facilitate that the process is less extended in the time, that the person acquires as soon as possible the tools to advance in his state and to improve, and that the impact in his life is the minor possible one. Hence, one of the best tips on how to help a teenager with depression is to find a professional who will give him or her the guidelines required to overcome the problem as soon as possible.

3. Unconditional support

Unconditional support is something that parents should offer their children in any situation, but all the more so when it comes to depression. but even more so when dealing with such a delicate issue as a psychopathology, and depression is one.and depression is one of them.

A person in a state of depression is like a shipwrecked person floating adrift at sea. He may be lucky and find a plank to cling to and reach land soon, but it will certainly be easier if he has someone to reach out and rescue him.

Support is always important, but 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, it is possible that the adolescent may be reluctant to receive the helpThey may prefer to be alone, or even become angry when we try to be concerned about them and find out what they need, but it is important that the support does not stop, even if the response is not what we would initially like it to be.

Therefore, if we think about how to help a teenager with depression, it is essential to keep your hand outstretched, it is essential to keep our hand outstretched at all times and give our child all the resources he or she may need to gradually overcome his or her pathological state of mind until the depression is definitively overcome. The role of parental support is fundamental in this task and we must be aware of this in order to make the most of this valuable resource.

4. Repairing the causes

The next point would refer to the repair of those situations that would be originating the problem. This advice on how to help an adolescent with depression may be fulfilled in some cases, but not in all cases.We have already seen that this disorder does not always have a concrete origin, or at least it is not as visible as we might think. Therefore we must always adapt to what we know and to 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 casuistry can be very varied, and can involve problems with their peer circle, unwanted situations at school (such as bullying, or difficulties in studies), a grief at the divorce of their parents, the death of a close relative, or many other situations.

Obviously, some events will be more amenable to repair than others, but the important thing is what we do about them, making the situation have as little impact as possible on our child and, above all, give him the tools so that he can express how he feels about it, what his needs are, and how he can express how he feels about it.What are his needs and, as we saw in the previous point, to accompany him in all that way, until he manages to overcome, thanks to all the help received and above all to his own work in this respect.

5. Support from their circle

Although parental help is vital, adolescents often find it easier to listen to their own are more likely to listen to their own friends.

Therefore, we must make use of this tool and also ask for the collaboration of those people who are part of our child's closest circle of friends, since they may have more capacity to "deliver the message" and be closer to him/her, since many times teenagers tend to keep a communicative distance with 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 better serve as a communication link between him and us, in a bidirectional way, and therefore it is a not inconsiderable advice on how to help a teenager with depression.

Bibliographical references:

• Barra, E., Cerna, R., Kramm, D., Véliz, V. (2006). Health problems, stress, coping, depression and social support in adolescents. Terapia psicológica.
• Leyva-Jiménez, R., Hernández-Juárez, A.M., López-Gaona, G. (2007). Adolescent depression and family functioning. Medical Journal of the Mexican Institute of Social Security.
• Pardo, G., Sandoval, A., Umbarila, D. (2004). Adolescence and depression. Colombian Journal of Psychology.