This one seems pretty obvious, but it’s always helpful to find evidence for it, and a new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry does just that.
The researchers found that exposure to 8 different early life stressors more than doubled the likelihood that adolescents would develop major depressive disorder.
This follows research showing that early life stressors also raise the risk for adult-onset major depressive disorder.
So what are the early-life stressors? Sexual abuse, physical abuse, death of a family member, domestic violence, and emotional abuse.
Interestingly, some early-life stressors weren’t associated with an increased risk of depression — poverty, illness, and exposure to a natural disaster.
Of course, this isn’t to say something like poverty isn’t often associated with developing major depressive disorder. After all, poverty and domestic violence often go hand-in-hand. It just suggests poverty, alone and independently, isn’t a statistically significant predictor.
Now, here’s something important for us to realize.
Christian parents often abide by the traditional, “If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger” thing.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We need to realize that. There are so many life experiences that scar and traumatize us for life, regardless of whether they put us six feet under.
We should throw that “If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger” axiom onto the trash heap of history because it a) excuses bad parenting and b) diminishes trauma and diminished trauma has lifelong consequences.
So if we want to help our children deal with their early-life stressors….. First and foremost, we shouldn’t do anything to contribute to them. And second, we must get help for kids or students quickly, if they’re exposed to them. There’s a small window of time between childhood and adolescence to address this before it develops into full-blown major depressive disorder, which is a tragedy.
Too often, parents think we’re setting our kids up for “success” in life by stressing early, awesome education. You know, “my kid can read The Wasteland at 3” kind of thing.
But the best thing we can do for their future spiritual, physical, and relational life is attending to their mental health.
