A new report today claims that one in four UK teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16 are unhappy and often feel depressed. Is this a reflection of society or are we just learning to understand the symptoms better?
For those of you who are a little older, life as a child in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s seems to have been something of a breeze compared to what youngsters go through today. Peer pressure seems to be forcing more and more youngsters to grow up quicker than just a couple of decades ago and the pressure seems to be growing. Quite whether a child would have either heard of the term depression, let alone suffered from it, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s is debatable but times have really changed over the last 20 years.
So is it society today which is causing the problem?
Many of the problems which teenagers face today can be traced back to recent developments in society, from the sale of hundreds of parks and play areas, to the use of mobile phones and the internet. Children today seem to have less and less to do, have little interaction with adults and fewer and fewer places to go to. This has all led to increased frustration which seems to be appearing as depression in many of the younger of today.
We ignore these signs at our peril because the children of today are the parents of tomorrow, and if they grow up in a world which they believe does not understand or help them, then we have big problems. The time has come for us to recognise that children today do grow up too quickly, too much pressure is applied to them in both their social and school lives and we need to redress the balance.
Depression in adults is bad enough, but feelings of depression in those as young as 14 is a very worrying development indeed.
