The Correlation Between Anxiety and Depression in Children

For many years it was believed that children did not have the emotional capacity to become depressed, and that as such they could not suffer from depression. Studies in recent years however have shown not only that they can, but that children frequently do suffer from depression. What’s more there is a strong correlation between anxiety and depression in children that needs examining by any parent who has a child that suffers from anxiety.

Anxiety and depression are two completely separate conditions that your child may suffer from. They may experience them in isolation, or they may have both of them at the same time. Studies have now shown that children who suffer from anxiety disorders are considerably more likely to also suffer from depression than children of the same age as them who do not suffer from depression-in fact up to sixty percent of long term anxiety sufferers may also be suffering from depression.

A child who is depressed may suffer nightmares, may wet the bed, may be clingy and whiny and not want to leave their caregivers. They are likely to not interact well with other children and may not play much. When they do play there isn’t the same joy as when other children play.

Anxiety in children presents itself as an overwhelming fear. There are physical symptoms as well as being afraid, and these include a racing heart and fast breathing, sweating, and trembling.

Your child may also feel unwell, and may complain of having a stomach ache, sore throat, headache or general malaise. Though there is no illness causing these perceived symptoms, the symptoms are real. Your child isn’t making up the pain in his tummy, and doesn’t feel the sickness any less just because the problem is coming from his brain rather than a virus.

Those children who suffer from both anxiety and depression have been shown to have relatively severe anxiety symptoms. The more severe your child’s anxiety is, the higher the likelihood is that they will eventually develop depression. It is also more common for older children with anxiety to suffer depression than younger children.

This may be because the older child has a greater awareness of the fact that their anxieties are not normal, or perhaps because the older child has more to worry about. The duration of the problem tends to be shorter in these older, more severe cases too.

It is important to differentiate between the anxiety symptoms that your child experiences, and depression. The two may share some features, and outwardly may appear similar but they require treating differently. Anti-depressants are often helpful in overcoming depression, but are not always helpful in the case of childhood anxiety.

The causes of anxiety and depression in children may also be the same. If your child sees their parents fighting every day, they may soon develop anxieties over the future of their family. They may think that divorce is on the horizon, or worry that they will be forced to live with only one parent, rarely being able to see the other.

Seeing a parent always upset about money, knowing that they don’t have much money and at the same time seeing that they don’t have the nice things that their school friends do can trigger both anxiety and depression. It may not be possible to overcome poor family finances, but it is possible to protect your child from its worst effects by not allowing them to see how scared and stressed you yourself are.

Illness or death in the family is a stress trigger that is unavoidable and yet, the family can help the child cope with it. When left to deal with it alone, or when it is assumed that the child is simply too young to understand and so insufficient explanation is given, the child may end up filling in the missing information for themselves.

Yet when all of these things are considered, depression and anxiety remain two separate problems. So why do children who suffer from anxiety disorders have a far higher chance of developing depression?

Children with anxiety end up focusing on the issue that makes them anxious. In the case of a child who fears that a loved one may die, they may think of nothing else. Constantly worrying about losing the person that you love most of all in this world and not being able to stop will eventually depress even the happiest of people.

If this is your child then they are not doing it deliberately. They are unable to control these thoughts and fears, and tend to be quite the opposite-they are controlled by their fears rather than them being able to control them. The negative cycle begins with the brain erroneously telling other systems in the child’s body that there is a threat, or something to be afraid off and soon the body is preparing itself for a fight.

These physical feelings are themselves disturbing, and often make the child focus on the bad thoughts. Suddenly instead of just having a bad thought, they have the thought but they are really, really scared and with the racing heart to prove it! The physical symptoms reinforce the fear, and the anxiety grows beyond the point that the child can cope with.

There is also an element of loss of control involved here. A child is most often powerless to help overcome the things that are worrying them. They cannot help with the family finances, nor can they help their parents overcome the relationship problems that lead to them fighting every night. They cannot stop themselves from getting sick, let alone other people and all in all it leads to them feeling completely powerless to stop these things that they are most worried about.

The correlation between anxiety and depression in children is strong and clear. It emphasizes the need to seek treatment quickly for symptoms of anxiety before they develop into something even more disturbing. Treatment may be as simple as family counseling, and teaching the family how to avoid future depression, yet can make the world of difference to your child’s life.

If you suspect your child may be suffering from anxiety, click below to learn more about what you can do to help:

Click here to learn more about your child’s anxiety and what you can do to help