Are you Depressed ?

Nowadays ,most of the teenagers are facing depression . Children living in invadilating circumstances,who have to deal with harsh criticism and different parents,often face self-esteem issues. This leads them to equate their existence with material ownership of the latest gadgets or with their idols like actor,actresses and singers. Since they do not have healthy self-image and self-worth, their spirit are easily broken and this leads to depression,self-multilation and even suicide.

On the last week New Straits Times newspaper on Tuesday (err forgot the date) a prince court medical Centre consultan psychiatrist and clinical hypnotherapist Dr Daniel Zainal Abidin said this problem are disturbing trend daily. He say “Elderly males used to be the predominant group who commit suicide,but now it’s the younger people”.

As a teenager I admit that I was trap on this “kind” of problem too and I belive that everythings start at home. We should look back to the home “environment”, How much time do parents spend with their kids ? when their parents left them at home this make their pain of loneliness and boredom lead to illicit drug use, spending excessive time in cyber cafes and hanging out with wrong crowd. Sometimes some kids they subsist on instans noodles while wait for their parents to return from work so the kids may be lack of the nutrition.

The intresting part that attract me to read more about Depression issues is when Dr Daniel Zainal Abidin randomly ask children one question to his most patients “ If you are trapped on a remote island and if you can have someone to accompany you, who will you bring?’’ and as the result for those under 10,70 to 80 per cent would give the name of a FRIEND or distant relative or even name of their Girlfriend/Boyfriend. And some patients tell him that is the only person who has ever taken time to listen to them.That to me, is a sad indication of the deteriorating family bond.

So I think parents should be more alert about this kind of serious problem.They should HEAR and LISTEN to their children and not fall into the trap using  “But when I was your age, I was already...” . I think this is wrong ! you cannot equate yourself with a child now. This world has changed and so must parenting. Because now modern teenagers live with too much information and temptation like money,social networking sites,unlimited information on the net and there ia a need to be actively involved in their lives to counter these and help them build solid self-worth and let them to express their fear and frustrations.

P/s : I have to do a lot of assigments in newspaper to get better result for MUET examination next years .