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How To Help Your Child With Their Depression

15 November 2018

Brent Chapman

When you have a child that is struggling with depression, you may feel as if you are helpless to provide them with any kind of care or assistance that will make them feel better. Depression is tricky because it is largely an invisible illness. Young people with depression can seem content or at least seem to have a baseline, level mood, but they may actually be feeling hopeless, helpless, and deeply sad. While it may be difficult to help your child deal with their depression, there are several ways that you can help. Get to know a few of these steps. Then, you can give them a try as soon as possible. 

Consider Going to Family Therapy

One of the many ways you can go about helping your child with their depression is actually to attend therapy sessions with them in a family therapy setting. Family therapy helps not only with your child's mental health condition but also with family dynamics, conflict resolution, and fostering an environment of support and understanding for all members of the family.

All of this can be quite helpful to your child struggling with depression. Your child will feel that you care enough about their treatment to be a part of it and can feel like they are truly heard by you in a structured and objective environment. You will gain insight about your child's condition and will better be able to provide them with the kind of support they need through exercises and strategies their therapist will help you come up with. 

Schedule Them Regular Massages

Depression is not just mental; it has a physical toll as well. Your child's depression may cause them to have chronic headaches, back and body aches, and pains, and it can cause them to carry physical tension throughout the body, causing muscle knots. 

One of the ways that you can help your child with those issues is to schedule them for regular sessions with a massage therapist. Massage therapists focus on treating tension and pain in the muscles of the body. Massages are not just good for directly addressing those aches and pains, though. They are also relaxing and can help relieve mental tension and stress. This can give your child a temporary respite from some of their depression symptoms. 

Massages once a week or once a month can help to give your child a self-care routine that they can rely on into adulthood to treat and prevent depressive episodes. You will be creating a good habit for them with massage therapy. 

Now that you know a few of the ways that you can help your child with depression, you can start putting these ideas to use as soon as possible. 

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