Reports State that 25% of Our Youth are Depressed. What can we do to help them feel better?

NOTE: This is an article that I posted on Quora in my new space there: Suzanne’s Space

Why are 25% of our kids so depressed that they qualify to be diagnosed as being depressed these days?

Today I want to explore why it is that 25% of our youth are so depressed that many have contemplated suicide. This problem has gotten much worse since the lockdowns and school closures. Please feel free to comment or ask your own questions below the post.

The first thing that we need to understand is that human beings are like ants in bees in that human beings are social in nature. When we are unable to be with our friends or be there for our loved ones we feel lonely and perhaps even unloved. It is natural for children to want to be with their grandparents especially if their grandparents are not feeling well their health failing from the normal health issues that many elders will develop such as heart disease, complications from type 2 diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune disease.

When we ask people to mask up, especially our children, we are denying them the ability to develop an understanding of facial expressions, necessary for knowing when they are with a pleasant and helpful person and when they may be in danger. Not to mention the fact that being unable to see people smile under these masks is very depressing in the first place. There is an automatic response to smile back when one smiles at you. Smiles bring lots of happy neurotransmitters into play.

Lastly, to believe that one is ‘friends’ with a bunch of strangers on social media platforms is to misunderstand what true friendship is all about. It is about having in-person interactions where one can see into another’s real eyes — not through a computer interface. Where one can hug and kiss those that they love — be it their family or their friends. It is about being able to be true to who you are because it is much harder to pretend to be something you are not in person than over the internet. And, all of these in-person encounters allow true socialization to occur which is necessary for emotional maturation.

So, what do you do to help your kids to feel less alone and more a part of the world to help them alleviate the depressed feelings that they are experiencing? First, you take off your mask and interact with one another normally. You answer all their questions as best you can. You are as truthful with them as you can be, speaking at their level of comprehension.

To better help, your children, ask them the hard questions as to what they are feeling and what they feel they need to feel better. Do so with compassion because as I noted at the beginning of this post 25% of our kids are feeling depressed and many are also feeling anxious regarding the ability of their parents to take care of them with so many businesses failing, people losing their jobs, and others leaving their jobs for whatever reasons they have. Do what you can to make your children feel safe and cared for — however, that does not in any way mean spoiling them or allowing them to manipulate you in any way — it just means that you do your best to help them feel safe, cared for, and respected for their point of view.

You allow them to play with their friends and be kids. Invite them to play in your yard. Bring as much normalcy back into their lives as you can, understanding that there are no academic studies anywhere that state that kids who have normal immune systems (meaning they are not dealing with cancer or autoimmune disease) will NOT develop COVID as well as the fact that they are not a vector (a manner of transmitting) for making anyone else ill. The fact the FDA is forcing injections on young kids is a great mistake as the injections will cause much more harm than prevention as the kids are NOT at risk in the first case. If we look at the statistics of those who have contracted this illness, we find that 85% or more are those over the age of 75 — those who already have chronic illness many for decades, with very poor immune systems. That is the fact and I have posted many academic articles, videos with statisticians, data analysts, virologist, etc on Quora specifically a post that asks about the mRNA injections:

Is it true that the mRNA shot is leaving the shoulder muscle and spreading into the bloodstream?

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-the-mRNA-shot-is-leaving-the-shoulder-muscle-and-spreading-into-the-bloodstream

There are some who do not believe what I have posted. My guess is that they didn’t read or watch the videos because if they did they would understand that these are experts and from the highest levels of academia one can find — I am hopeful that those of you who have joined me in this Space will take the time to actually read and view the information that is provided so that you can be better informed to better help yourself first, and you kids second. Education is the only way to truly understand this world, and one can most certainly look at another’s credentials to better understand what they may or may not be able to educate one on.

For myself, I have invested more money into my education than anything else in my life. I find the process of reading, synthesizing information from myriads of points of view, and writing thoughtfully on that which I have learned to be an exercise much more valuable than anything else in terms of understanding the world and therefore better understanding myself.

Traveling the world to many countries that are as different as the USA as I have been able to do is another form of self-education — living among the people, learning about the culture, and in so doing better understanding other peoples’ point of view. Trust me as a New York reform Jew speaking with a Palestinian Muslim one day in the laundry room at the University of Haifa, was a very big eye-opener for me. She told me what happened to the land that her grandfather owned in what became Isreal decades later. It was indeed taken away from him through the Israeli government. Though, to be truthful, many Jews who were living in Arab countries were also thrown off their land and ended up in Israel. As is the norm, there are two sides to a story and it is best to understand both sides before drawing the conclusion that you have all the facts to understand the greater issues involved.