Childhood Depression Clues Found in Play
How Preschoolers Play Can Indicate the State of Their Emotional Health
March 11, 2003 -- Determining childhood depression may be a matter of child's play -- or more specifically, watching it.
"The most specific symptom of depressive disorders in kids under age 6 is something called anhedonia -- essentially, appearing to have no fun while at play," says psychiatrist Joan L. Luby, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Enjoying activities in play is essential to a child's life, so if you notice that your child consistently doesn't want to play, or doesn't seem to enjoy playtime, it could signal that your child may need to be clinically assessed for depression."
Another play-related clue: Preschoolers who are likely to have depression typically have recurrent and consistent themes of despair, sadness, and death in play activities.
"That's not to say if a child is playing war and gets shot, that is cause for concern because all children explore some negative play themes," Luby tells WebMD. "But depressed preschoolers tend to be preoccupied with play themes in which sad or bad things consistently happen. When playing house, there will be a persistent pattern in which there will be lots of fighting in the household, or people are mean to each other, or a tornado comes and destroys the house."
These findings are part of a new study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, adding to evidence that even preschoolers can have clinical depression. In fact, they often display the same tell-tale symptoms as their older counterparts, such as sadness, irritability and lethargy -- a finding that Luby says defies long-standing thinking.
"Popular opinion has always suggested that if young children were indeed depressed -- and many disputed that they were -- they did not express these symptoms directly, but rather in what used to be called "masked" symptoms such as complaining about a stomachache," she tells WebMD. However, her study on 174 children between ages 3 and 5 1/2 shows that depressed preschoolers display typical symptoms of depression and sadness or irritability more frequently than masked symptoms.
The key indicators: anhedonia and death-centric play themes, sadness and grouchiness, low or recent changes in energy levels, low self-esteem, and frequent crying. Each of these symptoms was far more common in children diagnosed with depression than two other groups -- those who had other psychiatric disorders such as attention deficient hyperactivity disorder and those with no diagnosable psychiatric conditions.