Last partial update: July 2016 - Please read disclaimer before proceeding.

Anxiety and depression in Australian children and adolescents

Depression is the most common mental illness in Australia, with 3.4 per cent of males and 6.8 per cent of females reporting the condition in 1997. About 20 per cent of the population will suffer a significant bout of depression at least once in their lives. It is also the fourth most common reason for GP consultations.

Anxiety and depression are conditions that usually start in young adults and adolescents and in many individuals continue into adult lives, where together they are the most important cause of illness in women and the third most common cause in men. For this reason it is important that prevention strategies target this group and younger children.

The boundary between depression and anxiety is often unclear and it is very common for people to have symptoms of both conditions at the same time. Not surprisingly, their causes and treatments are also similar. For this reason they are often mentioned together in this section.

Up to 20% of adolescents (and a much smaller proportion of younger children) will develop depression. In children the rate is equal in males and females but in adolescents the rate is twice as high in females; the adult pattern. The incidence of anxiety in children and adolescents is about 10 per cent with the illness being chronic in nature.

Episodes of depression in children and adolescents tend to last about nine months. Recurrence rates are high, with about 70 per cent experiencing a further bout of depression with the next three to eight years. The younger the person is when they have their first bout of depression, the more likely they are to have recurrent episodes.

As with adult depression, adolescent and child depression is often accompanied by other mental illnesses that exacerbate the problem. Common accompanying conditions include anxiety disorders (40 per cent), attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (24 per cent), substance abuse (mainly alcohol) (25 per cent), and anti-social behaviour. These illnesses often precede the depression. An important part of assessing a depressed adolescent is looking for such associated illnesses, especially substance abuse.

Glass half-empty people

Depression varies greatly in its severity and its diagnosis for this reason is not always clear cut. There is no ‘yes or no’ blood test!! There will always be a large number of people who are borderline depressed, either temporarily or for much of their lives; the so called ‘glass half-empty’ people. Some of these people will at times meet the criteria for anxiety or depression and if this occurs they need to receive treatment. However, many will not. Their lives can, however, be made considerably more enjoyable by adopting the preventative measures described in this section in the case of children, and by changing the way problems are thought about / addressed in the case of adults. (See section on Achieving Change / Changing the way we think about problems.)

(Back to top)

Identifying children more likely to develop anxiety and depression?

It is important to emphasise that no sections of the Australian community are immune from anxiety and depression and therefore all parents / adults should help reduce the risk of the children they know and love developing depression. We can all do our bit!! Factors that help identify children / adolescents who are at increased risk of anxiety and depression are listed below.

Risk factors for adolescent / childhood depression

A family history of depression, especially in a parent
Recent significant life event

The death of a parent
Parent separation / divorce
The recent break up of an important relationship

Past / present history other mental illness

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders.
Alcohol or illicit drug abuse

Adolescents who are abused / deprived

Sexual abuse
Physical abuse
Significant poverty

Adolescents who are perceived as being ‘different’ including adolescents

With chronic physical illness
From differing ethnic backgrounds
Who are gay and lesbian

Identifying children showing early anxiety signs

Many children at increased risk of developing significant anxiety disorders can be identified early and treated effectively. Children at increased risk of developing anxiety disorders include those that:

are shy or withdrawn and have negative feelings, especially towards themselves
show symptoms of depression
have a family history of anxiety disorders
have overprotective and overly critical parents with unrealistic expectations for their children. These parents are sometimes described as overly intrusive in their child's life.
have a predominantly ‘negative’ relationship with their parents
have suffered from neglect

Identifying anxious children is not always easy. They are often very well behaved at school and don’t bother anyone. Thus they can be easily missed. Typically, they will only show their fears by avoiding the situations that worry them, such as performing in public, participating in class discussions, or engaging in unfamiliar activities. This avoidance behaviour often occurs on Mondays or at the beginning of school terms and can include pretending to be sick, with headaches and stomach problems being common complaints. At school, anxious children usually require constant reassurance. They may ask many unnecessary questions and get upset when they make mistakes. Some are perfectionists with a pessimistic attitude to tasks, thinking they will never produce work that is good enough. They are often loners or have only a few friends. They may refrain from social activities, such as birthday parties, and have difficulty separating from parents. Problems with sleeping are not uncommon.

The topics of anxiety and depression in children are addressed in much greater detail in the sections on these conditions. Click here to access these sections. The rest of this section is dedicated to the prevention of these conditions.

(Back to top)

Preventing anxiety and depression by building resilience in children

Throughout theirs lives all people are regularly confronted with problems big and small. How individuals react to these problems and the effect these problems exert on their outlook on life plays a significant role in determining their overall well-being.

People whose nature allows them to think rationally about problems, respond appropriately to them, and learn helpful lessons from their experiences so they cope even better next time have a much greater chance of leading fulfilling and successful lives. The opposite is the case in people who inappropriately think negatively about problems (often blaming themselves without reason) and who respond in unhelpful ways, ensuring that they learn unhelpful lessons and reinforce their negative outlook.

This negative outlook typifies the way anxious and depressed adults think, with these thought patterns usually developing during childhood. The fundamental approach taken in preventing anxiety and depression is to prevent these negative thought patterns developing in childhood by increasing the child’s resilience.

What is resilience?

Resilience is the ability to confront life’s problems in a way that minimizes the damaging impact of these problems.

‘Resilience is the universal capacity which allows a person, group or community to prevent, minimise or overcome the damaging effects of adversity.’
Edith Gotberg 2000

‘Building resilence is a never-ending upward spiral of coping with and taking charge of problems, solving them one at a time, and transforming failures into strategies that can be used to cope with and take charge of the next problem.’
Lynne Michael Blum, American psychologist

The long-term damaging impacts of inadequate resilience are the major health problems, chronic anxiety and depression. With this in mind, over the past 30 years much research has been done to try to find ways of promoting resilience in young people (and adults); fortunately with considerable success. There are numerous books available about resilience and how to promote it that are a wonderful resource for teaching adults how to improve resilience in children through the promotion of helpful life experiences.

Resilience – Risk factors and promoting factors

Research on the promotion of resilience has taken two separate paths. The first path looks at young people’s lives and tries to identify common risk factors in their lives that act to reduce resilience; such as parental mental illness or poverty. Not surprisingly, these risk factors are similar to those for developing depression and were mentioned in the beginning of this section.

The main limitation of risk factor identification and reduction as a way of increasing resilience and preventing the development of anxiety and depression is that many risk factors, such as those mentioned above, are difficult to alter / avoid.

Resilience – Factors that help promote resilience

The other path developed from an observation made during resilience risk factor research. This was that amongst the groups of young people who were exposed to these risk factors (i.e. faced significant adversity in their lives), there were many individuals who were able to adapt to and cope with their adverse environment; that is, they showed resilience.

Following on from this ‘discovery’, researchers started to look for the attributes that enabled some children who faced significant adversity to prosper, with the hope that incorporating such factors into the lives of children and actively promoting them would be an effective way of promoting resilience. Luckily it was. Most of these resilience promoting factors fit into the following categories.

Being connected to others
Being competent at activities
Showing character when faced with life’s problems
Being confident
Contributing to society

The two most important ‘resilience promoting’ factors.

1. The presence of caring adult in the child’s life

This is probably the most important factor and it is likely that most adults reading these words have the opportunity to be improtant in the life of at least one child.

"Fifty years from now it will not matter what kind of car you drove, what kind of house you lived in, how much you had in your bank account, nor what your clothes looked like. But the world may be a better place because you were important in the life of a child."
Anonymous

2. A warm and respectful parenting style

The main components of this parenting style are:

Nurturing: Parents are involved in a loving way in their child’s life.

Firmness: Firmness involves negotiating and setting clear codes of behaviour and limits that are adhered to, allowing the parent to protect the child and teach them discipline at the same time. The negotiating part of this process requires listening to and respecting the opinions of the teenager.

Autonomy-granting: Parents gradually encourage children to act according to their own beliefs, which helps build confidence while maintaining connectedness to the family. Responsibilities and independence should be gradually increased as appropriate to allow the child to mature safely.

Showing respect: Parents need to respect their adolescent’s point of view, even if they do not agree with it.

Set a good example: Parents need to set a good example for their child to follow in all they do. Some important areas include the way family problems are resolved, alcohol and other drug use, showing love and respect to all family members (especially partners), and showing respect and tolerance towards all people. The list could go on much longer!!

Communicate honestly and regularly

Parenting practices that should be avoided:

Over-controlling parenting: Parents should avoid being over-controlling, which can occur through:

being over-protective and thus discouraging opportunities for the child to be challenged and achieve.

continually expecting too much of the child, leading to failures and reduced self-confidence

using threats to control behaviour

Over-indulging parenting: Over-indulging their child by letting them do what ever they like. Children need limits that they know will lead to significant consequences if they are not adhered to. Over-indulging parenting is usually designed to prevent conflict that insecure parents can misinterpret as dislike for them. However most children in the longer term (which is what matters) see over-indulgent parenting as non-caring. It is more common in parental relationships where poor communication results in a non-coordinated approach to parenting.

The topic of parenting is covered in much greater detail in the section on parenting. Click here to access the parenting section.

A even more worthwhile resource to access is the book I just want you to be happy Preventing and tackling teenage depression, written by three Australian doctors intimately involved in the challenge of preventing depression in children and adolescents; Professor Leanne Rowe, Professor David Bennett and Professor Bruce Tonge. (Published by Allen and Unwin 2009.) This book aims to do just want it title suggests; help parents prevent and treat teenage depression.

(Back to top)

The Resilience Doughnut Program – A practical program to help parents develop ‘Resilience promoting’ factors in their children

This program was developed by Sydney-based psychologist Lyn Worsley, and is based on current research findings about building resilience, including findings from ‘The international Resilience Project’.

A large number of ‘resilience promoting’ factors have been identified. Some examples include:

Parents who show warmth, closeness and intimacy
Competence at a task or hobby
Having at least one caring and supportive relationship in addition to parental relationships
Having teachers who demonstrate a positive world view, are understanding and are available.
A sense of belonging and acceptance within a peer group
Involvement in a sporting club
Being expected to contribute to his or her purchases by age 12

Lyn Worsley, in her book The Resilience Doughnut The secret of strong kids, states that research has found that these beneficial factors could be divided into three groups:

Those factors that helped improve the child's perception of who they were (the 'Who I am factors') so that the child believed he or she was someone who:
- people can like or love
- enjoys doing nice things for people
- is respectful of himself or herself and of others
- is sure things will turn out alright
- is willing to be responsible for what he or he does
Those factors that helped the child's perception about what they can achieve (the ‘What I can do’ factors) so that the child believed he or she could:

talk to others about problems
find ways to solve problems encountered
control the impulse to do something not right or dangerous
decide when it is a good time to talk to someone or take action regarding a problem
find someone to provide help when it is needed

Those factors (the 'What I have factors') that allowed the child to know that there are people around who:

can be trusted and who love them, no matter what
will set limits for the person to protect them
will show, by example, the right way to do things / help with learning new skills
want me to do things on my own
will help when he or she is sick or is in danger

In all Lyn Worsley has incorporated 70 factors that were found to help build resilience into her program; quite a lot!! The reason that there are so many is that children have numerous ways of developing resilience; not just one.

What factors are required to develop resilience?

In order to make these 70 beneficial factors easy to incorporate into a parent-friendly resilience promotion program, Lyn Worsley has sorted them into seven factor groups with 10 beneficial factors in each. The factor groups are as follows.

The parenting factor group
The skill factor group
The family identity factor group
The education factor group
The peer group factor group
The community factor group
The money factor group

This list covers a lot of territory and any child who has significant resources / attributes in all these factor groups would have a lot going for them; he or she would be a very resilient child!! Not surprisingly, research has shown that children do not need to 'shine' in all seven factor groups to develop resilience. All they need is substantial attributes / qualities in three of the seven groups. (This provides the child with enough strengths in the ‘I am’, ‘I can’ and ‘I have’ categories mentioned above to be resilient.)

Using the Resilience Doughnut program

All children are different and have different strengths and these individual strengths are usually well known to their parents. When looking at the lists of 10 factors associated with the seven groups mentioned above, parents can usually fairly quickly identify which of the seven groups are their child’s strong ones.

Research has also shown that to develop resilient / optimistic thinking, it is important for the child to enjoy positive experiences that promote self-confidence. This usually involves activities the child is good at and situations the child enjoys and these usually overlap significantly with the child’s ‘strong groups’.

The basic framework of The Resilience Doughnut program is as follows.

Identify strengths:

Parents try to identify the three factor groups where their child is the strongest as follows. For each factor group, the program lists of 10 factors (attributes) that infer strength in that group. The parent determines whether their child’s environment possesses each of these attributes and gives a score out of 10 for each factor group, with the three factor groups with the highest scores being selected as the child’s strength areas.

Most parents want the best for their child and would like them to be strong in all factor groups. However, being realistic, no family has enough time or resources available to achieve this. Parents should therefore not feel that they have failed because they do not score well in a particular factor. It’s just the way life is. (Scoring poorly in all or most factor groups however should perhaps make parents think about their priorities.)
It is important that parents are honest when conducting this appraisal of their child strengths and do not inappropriately promote strengths that they would like their child to have or that they like themselves.
Promote ‘strength factors’ further:

The program assumes, quite appropriately, that the child will already have gained enjoyment, benefit and positive feedback from their strength areas. It is also very likely that there will be relatively more resources available to the child to further develop these strength factor groups compared to weaker factor groups.

With this in mind, the program advises parents to promote and develop these factor groups so that the child enjoys more of these positive experiences. The Resilient Doughnut Program provides numerous ideas about different ways to do this for each factor group.
Do not worry too much about ‘weaker factors’:

Those factor groups deemed to be ‘less strong’ are generally not actively promoted; unless achieving poorly in a particular factor group is significantly adversely affecting the child’s life. The reason for this is that there are likely to be significant reasons why these areas have not been pursued. For example, the child may not be good at a particular sport and have had numerous ‘bad experiences’. Concentrating on improving the sport would no doubt result in some benefit in this field, but probably at the cost of further bad experiences; and, in any case, the child is unlikely to use this mediocre ability that they are probably not very fond of later in life. We cannot be good at everything and most adults concentrate on the things that they like / are good at. In fact, it is necessary to do this to succeed.

Children need to be exposed to a variety of things to find out what they like / are good at. However, once this has been sorted out, the ones that the child is good at are those that should be pursued.

This program has many attributes, which is why it is mentioned at length here. These include:

ease of use
not telling parents what to do. Rather, it identifies what they are already doing well and helps them get better at these things
encouraging families / children to do more of what they enjoy / are good at, which can only help make everyone happier.
encouraging parents to take a greater interest and involvement in their children’s lives, and, of course,
helping prevent anxiety and depression in children

The Resilience Doughnut Program is presented in a book (with the same name) published by Lyn Worsley which can be purchased through her website: www.lynworsley.com.au
It is a program that would benefit all parents and the book is one that all parents should consider reading. (The cost is about $30.)

(Back to top)

Preventing depression in children whose parents suffer from anxiety / depression -

A family approach

The children of parents who suffer from significant anxiety and depression are at particular risk of developing these conditions, partly because these illnesses are to a degree inherited and partly because these children incorporate into their own character unhelpful behaviours and poor coping mechanisms that their parents repeatedly use when dealing with life’s problems. About 60 per cent of children with a parent who suffers from major depression will develop a psychiatric disorder (mostly anxiety or depression) during childhood / adolescence, which is over four times the incidence of children with unaffected parents. And, with about 20 per cent of the adult Australian population suffering at least one significant episode of depression during their life and about 5 per cent being affected at any one time, there are many, many homes with depressed parents.

Preventive strategies targeting these at risk children / families can significantly reduce the risk of children developing depression / anxiety. This is best done with the help of a counsellor who can educate the family regarding helpful preventive strategies (descibed below) and assist with therapy when needed. Open discussion of the problem between all family members is vital in this process and will make telling others who are able to assist the family, such as relatives and teachers, an easier task.

Unfortunately, the social stigma surounding mental illness means that parents will often not disclose a past (or even current) history of depression to other members of their family and this is all too often a major hinderance to both their treatment and prevention programs for their children. For this reason, it is important for friends, relatives, GPs etc to ensure that people with a history of depression know that:

their children face an increased risk regarding suffering from anxiety and depression
there is much that they can do to help these children.

What can parents with a history of depression do to help their children?

All parents who have a significant history of depression need to talk to their GP or mental health worker about commencing a coordinated program to help prevent depression occurring in their children. Such a program involves numerous family sessions with a mental health worker over months and long term monitoring of the family situation. Prevention programs commonly include the following elements.

Assessing all members of the family for evidence of depression
Increasing the overall understanding of both adult and childhood depression by every member of the family. The information provided should;

present general information about depression and risk factors for developing depression
mention that parental depression affects all members of the family
stress that parents were not to blame for their illness
explain that the children of parents suffering from depression are separate individuals, many of whom cope quite well with the effects of parental depression. (The ability to view the parental illness realistically and the ability to see themselves as a separate identity from their parents (i.e. developing self-understanding) helps promote resilience and coping in the children.)
mention the fact that discussion of the parent’s problem with the whole family helps these children / adolescents cope.

Increasing parents' skill at communicating with their children so that parents can discuss their depression and the effects the disease has on them.
Increasing parent skills at building resilience in their children through strategies such as assistance in building friendships and encouraging success outside the home. (Positive child outcomes are directly related to the number of changes parents make in the behaviours/attitudes of their children.) This topic is discussed above and in the section on parenting. Click here for more information on parenting.
Increasing positive interactions between the children and parents
Decreasing guilt and blaming for family problems in both adults AND children. (No one is to blame for the parent's illness.)
Identifying and treating other ‘family’ risk factors for childhood depression that are modifiable, such as;

poor parenting practices
poor marital communication
alcohol / other substance abuse

Involvement of teachers / school counsellors etc so that they can be on the lookout for early signs of depression in children. This means parents need to inform teachers / school counsellors of their depressive illness and how it increases their child’s risk pf depression.
Regular follow up by counsellors

If a suitable program is not available locally, information sessions conducted for members of the family by a mental health worker or a GP and reading suitable books on building resilience in children are a very good substitute. It is important that the family involved has ongoing, long-term supervision of their program.

Parents relatives and friends need to be 'aware' at times when children are at increased risk of depression

There are times when young people are themselves at increased risk of developing depression and this especially applies to young people who have a family history of depression. The most important ones are:

in adolescence generally
when a significant 'loss' occurs, such as the break up of a long standing relationship or the death of a friend / relative.
in females during and after pregnancy.

Support from parents, other family members and friends at these times using the strategies described above can help prevent depression occurring.

Relatives and friends need to help parents seek help for depression

It is important to remember that as many as 50 per cent of Australians with depression are not diagnosed or treated. This partly because many people with depression are embarrassed about talking about their problem. It is only possible to start prevention programs for the children of depressed parents when their doctor knows that the parent is depressed or has had depression. Therefore, everyone needs to know the symptoms of depression and needs to encourage friends and family with this illness to seek help. Friends and relatives also need to ensure that families with depression continue long-term monitoring of their problem with their GP or mental health worker.

A helpful Australian Government web site:
Children of Parents with a Mental Illness ('COPMI')
http://www.copmi.net.au/

(Back to top)

Other general means of preventing depression in children and adults

Adopting the strategies below is a great way for everyone to stay mentally well and will be beneficial to all those individuals AND FAMILIES who incorporate them into their lives.

1. Incorporate ‘event scheduling’ into everyday life

Many people who are depressed or close to it reduce the number and type of activities they do and this unfortunately includes their pleasurable activities as well as ones that are less so. Thus, they enjoy life less. Another unfortunate consequence is that they have reduced contact with other people, seeing old friends less and making fewer new friends, and this reduces the likelihood that they will be included in the social activities of these people.

One way of reducing this problem is to actively incorporate ‘event scheduling’ into daily life. These can be any sort of events; they do not need to be major occasions that cause stress. Events that involve repeated regular involvement are best. Local councils often have lists of clubs / activities that exist locally. Often a good way to start is by reestablishing contact with long-standing friends or resuming past interests have been ‘let slip’. Some examples of the range of activities available include:

Involvement in team sports or sporting clubs. Being involved in a competition is even better as usually means weekly games and training.
Involvement in any number of non-sporting activity clubs
Scheduling informal regular activities with friends.
Taking up a hobby such as playing a musical instrument
Involvement in community organisations for adolescents such as Rotaract

One of the problems in being ‘down’ is that the sufferer does not recognise that they are reducing their activities, and even when they do, they find it difficult to get the motivation to change. An important part of living is to be aware of the important people in life; relatives and friends. Look for the signs that a friend / partner is down at the moment. Help them with any problem that might be causing these feelings and make sure they are included in regular activities where possible.

2. Become more physically active

There is strong evidence that regular physical activity improves depression and it can also help reduce the risk of developing depression. Such activities are of great benefit whether done alone or with other people, although doing activities with others helps socialization and increases the likelihood of increased other social contact. (See section on increasing physical activity.)

In overweight teenagers, an additional benefit of increased physical activity is weight loss. However, in teenage girls it is best not to emphasise this benefit as this group is at risk of developing eating disorders.

3. Improve thinking about problems (for adolescents and adults)

Many people have learned unhelpful ways of dealing with problems that make them unnecessarily unhappy. This often has to do with automatically thinking negatively when faced with everyday problems and thus often worrying unnecessarily. Learning to both identify when such thinking is inappropriate and attempting to adopt a more constructive and helpful response in such circumstances is often very beneficial. (This is the basis of Cognitive Behavioural therapy. It is used to treat depression but is useful for everyone to adopt into their lives. This topic is discussed more fully in the chapter on Achieving Change and should be read!! The book Change your thinking by Sarah Edelman (ABC Books) is an excellent resource for both adults and older adolescents regarding this topic and is easy to read. (See section on Achieving Change.)

4. Refrain from alcohol and illicit drug abuse:

Alcohol and illicit drug abuse are well established risk factors for developing depression. Adolescents suffering from anxiety or depression need to refrain from consuming either.

5. Get adequate sleep.

Adolescents who are chronically tired due to problems sleeping or devoting insufficient time to sleep are more likely to develop depression. The topic of sleep and how to improve it is discussed in detail in another section. (Click here to access section on sleep.)

6. Treat acne

While acne itself is not significantly preventable, it is a cause of much anxiety in adolescents and there are numerous effective treatments that can make a huge difference to the self-image and thus 'life' of the average teenager. (Click here to access section on acne.)

Adopting the above strategies is a great way for everyone to stay mentally well and will be beneficial to all those who incorporate them into their lives. They will not, however, prevent depression in some people and are certainly are not a substitute for the treatment of clinically depressed people, although they are all part of such treatment.

Further information on mental illness

Mental health resources

Mental Health Branch of the Department of Health and Aged Care www.mentalhealth.gov.au
This site provides information about crisis supports and contacts, general mental health information, mental health information brochures / publications about specific topics such as depression, anxiety, information about suicide prevention etc.
Ph 1800 066 247

Beyond Blue: The National Depression Initiative www.beyondblue.org.au

ybblue (Beyond Blue’s youth program) www.ybblue.com.au
Beyond Blue’s youth program

Black dog institute www.blackdoginstitute.org.au
Provides information for clinicians and patient education.

Moodgym www.moodgym.anu.edu.au
An interactive program of CBT, more aimed at depression, developed by the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University.)

Reachout www.reachout.com.au
A resource for young people with depression.

Self-Injury www.self-injury.net
A web site with information about youth self-injury; an increasing problem in western society. It is run by a young adult who has previously self injured and gives information about overcoming the problem.

Lifeline www.lifeline.org.au Ph 13 1114
Lifeline provides an immediate counseling service for all people)

Kids Help Line www.kidshelp.com.au
A national 24 hour counseling service for children and young people)
Ph 1800 551 800

CRUfAD, The Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety and Depression www.crufad.com
CRUfAD is a group of researchers and clinicians concerned with anxiety and depression. It is a joint facility of St Vincent's Hospital Ltd and the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The self-help section of the web site has useful information about both anxiety and depression for the general public.

Anxiety Panic Hub www.panicattacks.com.au
A consumer web site with a focus on meditation / mindfulness.

Mindmatters http://www.mindmatters.edu.au
A program that introduces mental health education to secondary schools.

A helpful Australian Government web site:
Children of Parents with a Mental Illness ('COPMI') (An Australian Government web site.)
http://www.copmi.net.au/

Live Well Live Long

Preventing anxiety and depression in children - Building resilience

Contents

Last partial update: July 2016 - Please read disclaimer before proceeding.

Anxiety and depression in Australian children and adolescents

Glass half-empty people

Identifying children more likely to develop anxiety and depression?

Risk factors for adolescent / childhood depression

Identifying children showing early anxiety signs

Preventing anxiety and depression by building resilience in children

What is resilience?

Resilience – Risk factors and promoting factors

Resilience – Factors that help promote resilience

The two most important ‘resilience promoting’ factors.

1. The presence of caring adult in the child’s life

2. A warm and respectful parenting style

(Back to top)

The Resilience Doughnut Program – A practical program to help parents develop ‘Resilience promoting’ factors in their children

This program was developed by Sydney-based psychologist Lyn Worsley, and is based on current research findings about building resilience, including findings from ‘The international Resilience Project’.

What factors are required to develop resilience?

Using the Resilience Doughnut program

Preventing depression in children whose parents suffer from anxiety / depression -

A family approach

What can parents with a history of depression do to help their children?

Parents relatives and friends need to be 'aware' at times when children are at increased risk of depression

Relatives and friends need to help parents seek help for depression

Other general means of preventing depression in children and adults

1. Incorporate ‘event scheduling’ into everyday life

2. Become more physically active

3. Improve thinking about problems (for adolescents and adults)

4. Refrain from alcohol and illicit drug abuse:

5. Get adequate sleep.

6. Treat acne

Further information on mental illness

Mental health resources

Further reading on mental health topics

(Back to top)