3 Ways to Help a Depressed Teen Boy - Get This Right and He Will Grow Into a Well Balanced Adult

Given that depression can be cured but suicide can not, a depressed teen boy should never be left to fend for himself. Teen depression should never be brushed under the carpet. Many parents do that because they do not know enough about depression and have no idea where to start.

Let us start with an alarming statistic. In the USA, suicide is the third cause of death for adolescents and young adults in the 15 to 24 age group. Also, boys are more likely to commit suicide than girls. These figures have been released by the CDC, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.

As regards self inflicted injuries or self harming, the figures for the State of California show that 3,356 children and adolescents were hospitalized. Self injury is often considered an obscure effect of depression but it is much more common than we think.

Here is the first way we can help a depressed teen boy. The first is to get help from a doctor or health professional once we are fairly certain that there is a problem. Signs of depression in a teen boy could range from an eating disorder, trouble at school, withdrawal from activities and oversleeping or suffering from insomnia. There may also be guilt, anger, anxiety and thoughts of suicide. Sometimes even doctors do not realize that depression is the problem and tend to treat only the physical symptoms.

The second way to help is that once treatment is discussed, talk to your depressed teen boy about what he wants to do. It could be talk therapy or medication or just a combination of the two. Actually some kind of therapy is important so that the teen can understand what is going on so that he can get off the meds as soon as possible. Some teens are on these meds for years and become really dependent on them.

The third way to help is to think of some relaxing activities and physical fun activities like dancing, yoga or skateboarding so that stress is minimized and also the endorphins, the good mood hormones get a chance to kick in. The effects of any good workout or game can last up to half a day. This is so important and can help you to reduce media time as well which can be debilitating.

If you think that your teenage depressed boy would be much better off without anti depressants and you are worried about him becoming dependent on them, there is another solution. That is to consider carefully whether a herbal remedy may be the answer. The side effects are much less dramatic and the results are comparable if not better than the anti depressants. Why not check it out? This could be the best way to help your depressed teen boy to put all that behind him and grow up into a well balanced happy adult.