Children+and+Mood+Disorders

“I would never let my child behave like that”
===**Does this phrase sound familiar to you? People often expect the worst and blame the parents, No one ever stops to considers the possibilty that the child may have a mood disorder, possibly the on- set of Bi-polar disorder. Sometimes taking the time to understand or be educated about a situation make all the difference in the world. **=== ===**We have all felt sad, or melancholy, from time to time. But there is a point where sadness becomes chronic and insufferable. Mood disorders, predominantly Depression and Bi-polar syndromes, are said to strike one in seven of the population. **===

__The Prevalence of Mood Disorders in Children and Adolescents __
===7-14% of children will experience an episode of major depression before the age of 15. 20-30% of adult bipolar patients. Out of 100,000 adolescents, two to three thousand will have mood disorders out of which 8-10 will commit suicide. === ===Bi-polar disorder appears to run in families, and there is some evidence that a biological vulnerability towards bi-polarity could be inherited. However, not everyone with this genetic vulnerability has the illness. Major depression also seems to appear generationally, but it too can occur in persons with no family history of the disease. An important factor that the research has uncovered is that major depressive disorder is associated with a neuro-chemical imbalance in the brain. ===

//Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: Centre of Knowledge on Healthy Child Development, Offord Centre for Child Studies (2007) //