{"id":8654,"date":"2016-10-28T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T10:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=8654"},"modified":"2016-10-23T19:40:33","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T23:40:33","slug":"child-take-antidepressant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2016\/10\/child-take-antidepressant.html","title":{"rendered":"Should My Child Take an Antidepressant?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8656\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2016\/10\/little-boy-1635065_1920-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"little-boy-1635065_1920\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>Reader Question: My daughter has been diagnosed with depression. The pediatrician is recommending she take an antidepressant. She is only 11-years -old and I am not sure this is a good idea. She is depressed and there are reasons for her depression. What are your thoughts about putting children on antidepressants? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Trust me, you are not alone asking this question. It is estimated that 9,614,000 children (ages 0-19 years of age) are on antidepressants. 1,026,000 of those children are between the ages of 0 and nine years of age. The problem is that there is limited research about many drugs and their impact on children. Side effects are always an issue and can be different from adults taking the same drugs. In fact, studies show that children who begin an antidepressant can be at an increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The risk is small but greater than those not taking antidepressants. Thus, the FDA requires all antidepressants to include a black box warning-the strongest safety warning possible on a prescription medication. Of course, the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors are present with depression.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the number of children on antidepressants, Dr. Benjamin at the National Institutes of Health is leading a team to study dosing and safety issues in medicating children. My opinion, based on years of working in psychiatric hospitals and in medical schools, is that non-drug alternatives should always be explored and tried before medication is considered.<\/p>\n<p>However, it would be irresponsible of me to say that in no case should a child be given these medications. If medication is given, talk therapy should be provided along side medications. And the child must be monitored closely because children do not communicate side effects. In addition, antidepressants usually take one to three weeks before benefit is felt and several medications may have to be tried before one is found that works. That said, I would encourage you to speak with your pediatrician about non-drug options first, as many types of depression can be treated successfully without medications.<\/p>\n<p>And I would highly recommend that you\u00a0have your child evaluated by a child\u00a0psychiatrist as well. He or she may be more familiar with treatment of childhood depression. The risk of medicating and the risk of non medicating are greatest in the early years of a child&#8217;s life,\u00a0so this has to be a conversation with a well trained doctor who can help you assess all the risks and options.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong>*Statistics reported in the Wall Street Journal, Personal Journal Section December 28, 2010<\/p>\n<p>\u201cComparative Safety of Antidepressant Agents for Children and Adolescents Regarding Suicidal Acts,\u201d <em>Pediatrics, <\/em>May 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reader Question: My daughter has been diagnosed with depression. The pediatrician is recommending she take an antidepressant. She is only 11-years -old and I am not sure this is a good idea. She is depressed and there are reasons for her depression. What are your thoughts about putting children on antidepressants? \u00a0Trust me, you are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[914],"tags":[3504,3645,304,3646],"class_list":["post-8654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-relationships-2","tag-antidepressants","tag-child-depression","tag-depression","tag-medication-and-children"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Should My Child Take an Antidepressant?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2016\/10\/child-take-antidepressant.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should My Child Take an Antidepressant?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reader Question: My daughter has been diagnosed with depression. The pediatrician is recommending she take an antidepressant. She is only 11-years -old and I am not sure this is a good idea. She is depressed and there are reasons for her depression. 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The pediatrician is recommending she take an antidepressant. She is only 11-years -old and I am not sure this is a good idea. She is depressed and there are reasons for her depression. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8657,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8654\/revisions\/8657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}