Depression is an increasing problem among teen-agers. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, as many as one in five children experience depression as teens. Depression interferes with social interaction and motivation for school. It’s something parents need to take seriously.

A new study published in the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology suggests that the best time to pay attention to teen depression is before children enter their teen years. Parents and teachers of middle school students should actively teach skills of resilience and persistence.

By about age 9, many children adopt a “trait orientation” towards their abilities. This means they come to believe that they are either “good at” something or not and that there is nothing that can be done to change this trait. Younger children tend to have a more flexible “performance orientation” which leads them to believe that “practice makes perfect” and “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Parents can recapture this performance orientation for their middle school children by actively teaching problem solving skills.

The study, conducted by Dr. Cari McCarty of Seattle Children’s Hospital, found that middle school students who showed early signs of depression didn’t do so well with one-to-one therapeutic support as children did who were just taught positive thinking and coping skills.

“Basic problem solving skills are important: really thinking about a problem, taking a step back, generating multiple solutions, brainstorming options and then making a weighted decision about what they should do,” said McCarty.

Instead of clinging to the idea that “I’m going to give up, I’m no good at this, I’m not going to even try anymore,” kids can be taught to work out alternative ways to succeed and to keep trying.

Parents should avoid telling a child she’s just not good at something and also should avoid telling a child “I’m not good at that either.” Doing that just supports an ineffective trait orientation. Parents also should avoid blaming the teacher or coach or making other excuses for setbacks. Instead, parents should take a more matter-of-fact approach. Here’s how:

• Sympathize with a challenge. Recognize that a task is difficult but express confidence the child will figure something out.
• Provide guidance in coming up with possible solutions. Help a child to always have a back-up plan if her first idea doesn’t work out.
• Guide your child in analyzing what went wrong and figuring out how to achieve a better outcome next time.
• Praise for effort and persistence, not for achievement. The process of learning how to handle difficulties is far more important than easy success.

Dr. McCarty says, “Depression is preventable in that we can make a difference and we can mitigate some of the negative effects by intervening earlier with kids.”

Middle school is hard enough. Make sure your child has the tools to get through with confidence and to start his teen years with strength.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved.

We’d all like our children to have easy lives. We’d like them to sail through all their school subjects, be picked first for playground games, and find no frustration or setbacks in anything they try. Sometimes we want this so much that we believe it’s the way things should be – and when they aren’t then there must be something wrong.

The fact is, though, that struggle is good for kids. Struggle is how growth happens. A recent investigation of the differences between Korean students and American students showed that Korean kids – well-known as a group for their high academic achievement – are not discouraged by struggle. They know how to persist and come out on top.

American students tend to give up. They seem to think that they should be “good already” at whatever they undertake.

This attitude – that being good at something is part of a person’s personality and not something that develops through effort – is known as “trait orientation.” Children tend to develop this in the early school years. Obviously, toddlers don’t think this way. If they did, they’d give up immediately on learning to walk!

Believing that one has to be “good at math” to be good at math sets a kid up for failure. It gives her a ready excuse for not trying – “I’m just not good at that” – and it shuts down any learning that might help the child feel more confident. When parents support this idea, by saying, “I’m not any good at math either,” they teach a child that the only things worth doing are things that come easy.

But most things worth doing have to be learned. A more useful point-of-view is a “performance orientation,” in which a person recognizes that becoming good at something is accomplished through learning and practice. Under a performance orientation, anything is possible. If it’s not easy yet, it will be easy someday, after a person has learned more and become more expert.

One way to encourage a performance orientation is to smile and say, for example, “You’re not good at math yet. But you will be. I have confidence in you.”

It’s important that we parents accept that not everything will come naturally for our kids but that giving up too soon is not the way to go. Giving up limits a child to who he is and what he knows right now. It doesn’t let him grow.

By adopting a performance orientation for our children – and, yes, even for ourselves – we set the expectation that the best is yet to come. What we want to be able to do and be is within our powers to achieve.

Struggle may be tiresome. But struggle is a very good thing.

© 2012, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved.