“Depression is a mood disorder in which the individual is unhappy, demoralized, self-derogatory, and bored. The individual does not feel well, loses stamina easily, often has a poor appetite, and it listless and unmotivated” (Santrock, 1998). This definition applies to adults and children, though children’s depressive symptoms are also mixed with a broader array of behaviors, such as: aggression, failing in school, anxiety, antisocial behavior, and poor peer relations. With these other behaviors, the diagnosis of depression is harder to make.

There are have been many correlations and reported causes of these depressive symptoms in children. One of them is negative life events and stressful environments. In a study conducted by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema

Stressful environments also may have an impact on depressive symptoms in children. Stressers such as a parental divorce, a death in the family, or anything that causes a significant change in the parenting style or abilities of the caregiver have a significant impact on the children (Yoko, 2002). These events may lead to low morale in the children, which in turn, leads to depressive symptoms.

Some people have equated depression to the common cold and some say that child can not get depressed because they don’t know enough or have no real reason to become depressed. I disagree with both statements. Depression is much more serious than a simple cold. No one has killed themselves because they had a cold, however, people have committed suicide because they were depressed. Depression does not need a “real reason”. Adults get depressed over nothing, who’s to say that children cannot be the same way? What adult has lived inside a child’s mind and saw what they saw and then came back and told us all about how the child’s mind works? No one, that would be impossible. We can never really know every single little thing that is going on in a child’s head, therefore, we cannot fully know what makes a child depressed or display depressive symptoms. We can hypothesize and study the behaviors of depressed children, but we cannot fully understand and see everything through their eyes. But because today’s children are tomorrow’s adults, we need to take action on the emotional disorders and help the children any way we can to live the healthiest life possible.

The third method of treatment is cognitive intervention. The process of helping children to more realistically self-evaluate and appropriately reward themselves is critical. Special attention should be given to helping the depressed child identify potentially pleasurable events (Kendall, 1992). However, depressed children’s guilt might get in the way of identifying these events because they believe they are not deserving. Also, for depression, there is a need for careful discussion after an event, so that there are no doubt about the causes of the outcomes of the event. Enhancing problem-solving skills, exercising the generation of a variety of solutions to a problem may address the

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