you're a parent, especially the parent of a teenager, each
day brings new joys and new frustrations. For many parents,
a constant challenge in the family home is dealing with a
common teenage condition: complaining. In fact, youčre probably
so accustomed to the steady stream of complaints that you
"tune out" most of it.
But don't tune out everything. A study published in the
journal Pediatrics reports that adolescents with multiple
physical complaints (that cannot be explained by known physical
conditions) may be at risk for depression. The study evaluated
1,015 teenagers (13-16 years old) and found that teens reporting
physical symptoms (i.e., headaches or abdominal pain) with
unknown causes faced the possibility of panic attacks and
major depression four years later.
If you don't think these results are cause for concern,
listen to this somber statistic: The suicide rate for adolescents
has increased by more than 200% over the last decade!
We should all listen more in general. Parenting is more than
just telling your children what to do. It's also about listening
to what they have to say and what they're feeling. As this
study suggests, seemingly harmless physical complaints might
be a manifestation of depression.
Zwaigenbaum L, Szatmari P, Boyle MH, et al. Highly somatizing
young adolescents and the risk of depression. Pediatrics,
June 1999: Vol. 103, No. 6, pp1203-09.