All My Children

One of your most important goals when passing the baton to your child is to prepare him or her for marriage. If you have a strong and vibrant marriage, it is important to share with your children the principles upon which you have built and maintained this relationship. But if your marriage is less than ideal or you have experienced a divorce, lessons you have learned the hard way can still benefit your children, assuming that you are willing to be candid and transparent about your experience.

At a time when approximately 50 percent of marriages end in divorce and only 10 to 20 percent of the remaining marriages (5 to 10 percent of the total) are characterized by true satisfaction, parents face a formidable job educating their children about selecting a husband or a wife for life. Continue Reading »

Children begin thinking about “what I want to be when I grow up” early in life, as they play with their friends and watch their parent(s) go off to work every day. An ideal time to start career preparation is during the preteen years. Take the time to expose your children to a variety of occupations. If your daughter is interested in medicine, for example, let her spend time talking to her physician about the demands and rewards of this profession. The same approach can be taken for virtually any type of career that might interest your child. Continue Reading »

A persistent sad or negative mood

Most parents may at some point, if not frequently, complain that their teenager has a “lousy attitude.” It isn’t at all unusual for adolescents to experience emotions and mood swings that seem out of proportion to the circumstances. But the depressed child or teenager seems to be in a perpetual slump.

Unfortunately, you won’t hear a young person say, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been depressed for the past several weeks.” Instead, you may see any of a number of the following signals that would appear disconnected: Continue Reading »

DEPRESSION: AS COMMON AS THE COMMON COLD

Depression is by far the most common and important emotional health problem in America. In terms of its frequency among the population, depression could be compared to the common cold. But the similarity ends there.

• The sneezing and hacking of a cold is readily apparent to the person who has it, as well as to everyone around him. But depression can be manifested in a bewildering array of symptoms, many of them physical, but may not be recognized by the individual himself or by those closest to him.
• Cold viruses are usually vanquished by the immune system within a week, while untreated depression can continue for months or even years.

Continue Reading »

A complex blend of genetic, biochemical, personal, family, and spiritual factors can interact to cause depression. These include:

• Genetics and biochemistry. For a great many individuals, depression is primarily the result of a malfunction of neurotransmitters, compounds that participate in the electrochemical communication between nerve cells in the brain. Very often the vulnerability to a neurotransmitter disturbance appears to have a genetic origin, such that a number of members of the same family may be affected. This vulnerability, among other things, accounts for an individual becoming depressed for no apparent reason or struggling with depression throughout life.

Continue Reading »

A parent’s role in dealing with depression can be broken down into three key tasks:

Be alert for signs of depression.

These have already been listed, but it bears emphasizing that parents are often caught off guard by their child’s or adolescent’s depression. This disorder can occur even in the most stable home where children have been reared by devoted parents who provide consistent love and limits. Remember that for many individuals depression is caused primarily by a biochemical imbalance in the brain and not by bad parenting or a personal crisis. Don’t assume that “it can’t happen in our home” because in doing so, you might ignore or write off as a “bad attitude” significant changes in mood or behavior that desperately need your attention. Continue Reading »

Many of the unique features of depression among young people also increase their risk of suicide. In particular, the intensity of their emotions and a shortage of life experiences that might allow them to imagine a hopeful future beyond an immediate crisis may give rise to self-destructive behavior, especially on an impulsive basis. In order to reduce the chance of a tragic loss of life, be aware of not only the signs of depression, which have already been listed, but also of the following risks and warning signs:

• A previous suicide attempt. This is considered the most significant predictor of a future suicide; more than 40 percent of adolescents who commit suicide have attempted it at least once in the past.

Continue Reading »

Alcohol—the most dangerous gateway drug

In all fifty states, it is illegal to sell alcoholic beverages to anyone under age twenty-one. This is no accident, because for teenagers alcohol is a gateway to a lot more than other drugs.

Alcohol causes more deaths among adolescents than any other substance. About 40 percent of all deaths in sixteen- to twenty-year-olds result from motor- vehicle crashes, and half of these are alcohol related. Overall, driving under the influence is the leading cause of death for people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Alcohol also frequently plays a role in adolescent deaths from other causes: homicides, suicides, drownings, and motorcycle and bicycle accidents. Continue Reading »

Few children and adolescents start a career of drug use by snorting cocaine or injecting heroin. The path usually begins with products from the corner store—tobacco, alcohol, or household products that are inhaled—or with marijuana, which some mistakenly consider safe.

Tobacco—the smoking gun

No drug habit has a greater negative impact on our national health than tobacco, which is implicated in more than four hundred thousand deaths in the United States each year. The list of disorders caused or aggravated by tobacco is staggering. Among these diseases are cancers of the lung, mouth, vocal cords, and other organs; chronic lung disease; asthma; ulcers; clogging of the vessels that supply blood to the heart and other organs, causing heart attacks, strokes, amputations, and premature deaths. Babies and children who breathe smokers‘ exhaust at home are at risk for respiratory infections, asthma, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Continue Reading »

Four factors set the stage for adolescent drug use:

Attitudes of parents toward tobacco, alcohol, and other substances. Children learn what they live. Smoking, drinking, and other drug-related behaviors among parents will usually be duplicated in their children.

Attractiveness of drugs. Smoking and drinking are widely promoted as habits enjoyed by sophisticated, fun-loving, attractive, and sexy people— what most adolescents long to become. Illegal drugs are “advertised” by those using them in an adolescent’s peer group. Continue Reading »