Clues About My Parent's Blues: A New Book to Help Kids Understand Their Parent's Depression

It's hard to talk to your kids about your depression. Will they understand? Will it scare them? Will they be angry? Will it make them depressed? These concerns are just a brief sampling of the many that parents have when they consider discussing their depression with their kids. Many parents prefer their kids just don't know they're depressed or seeking treatment and the confidentiality of the docotor-patient relationship and the researcher-participant relationship guarantees that this is a decision each parent makes him or herself. This being said, most kids know when their parents are sad and are affected by it whether or not it's openly acknowledged. You could say, parental depression is shared by the family before it is discussed. Perhaps with this in mind, a recently published book, Why Are You So Sad? by Beth Andrews, aims to ameliorate the challenges of talking with kids about parental depression.

The book goes beyond explaining parental depression, however. It's a forum for kids and parents to explore how kids feel about mom and/or dad's sadness and how to deal with those feelings in an adpative way. Learning to identify and deal with feelings may be protective for the children of depressed parents, who are at heightened risk of developing emotional and behavioral disorders.

For more on Why Are you So Sad? go to http://www.maginationpress.com/4418870.html.