When parents imagine depression, we often picture the obvious signs: a teenager who seems deeply sad, cries frequently, stays in bed, or withdraws from everyone around them.
But teen depression doesn’t always look like that.
Sometimes it looks like anger, irritability, talking back, refusing to do homework, complaining about stomachaches, or suddenly seeming difficult and oppositional. And that can make it incredibly hard for parents to know what they’re actually looking at. Is this depression? Is this anxiety? Is this a normal developmental phase? Or is my teen simply being a teenager?
That uncertainty is exactly why we wanted to have this conversation on Parenting Shrink Wrapped.
In this episode, Melissa and I are joined by Jennifer Williams, LCPC, PMH-C, a licensed therapist, perinatal mental health specialist, certified parental leave coach, and author of If My Depression Had a Name.
Teens Don’t Always Have the Words for Depression
One of the challenges Jennifer sees in her work is that teens frequently don’t have the emotional vocabulary to explain what they’re experiencing. They may not walk into the kitchen and announce, “Mom, I think I’m experiencing symptoms of depression.” Wouldn’t parenting be considerably easier if they did?
Instead, those feelings often come out through behavior. A teen may become unusually angry, frustrated, irritable, or oppositional. They may stop doing things they normally manage without much trouble. They might complain about physical symptoms such as stomachaches.
Rather than looking only at the behavior, Jennifer encourages parents to get curious about what might be underneath it.
Slow Down Before You React
If your teen suddenly isn’t doing homework, is talking back, or seems irritated by everything you say, your first instinct may understandably be to address the behavior.
But Jennifer suggests starting somewhere else: slow down.
Before reacting, notice what is happening in you and then ask yourself what may be happening with your teen. That doesn’t mean there are suddenly no rules or expectations. It means we don’t assume the behavior tells us the entire story.
Sometimes behavior is communication.
Connection Doesn’t Require a Big Conversation
We also talked about one of the great conversational dead ends of parenting teens:
“How was your day?”
“Fine.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
As frustrating as those answers can be, your teen doesn’t need to give you a detailed emotional debrief every afternoon for connection to matter.
Jennifer encourages parents to continue creating little opportunities to connect. Sit beside them. Keep asking without interrogating. Spend a few minutes together. Let them know you’re available even if they aren’t ready to talk.
Every one of those interactions can open another small window into your teen’s world.
(A side-bar pro-tip about after-school check-ins: instead of asking broad, generic questions about your teen’s ENTIRE day, get more granular. Try “What was the funniest thing that happened today?” or “Who did you sit with at lunch?” or “What was the most frustrating part of your day?” You might be surprised at how much more content these types of questions elicit from your otherwise monosyllabic teen.)
You Don’t Have to Fix the Feeling
One of the hardest parts of parenting a struggling teen is resisting the urge to make the uncomfortable feeling disappear.
We want our teens to feel better, so we buy something they want, plan an outing, offer solutions, tell them everything they have going for them, or reassure them that there really isn’t anything to be sad about.
Unfortunately, depression doesn’t work that way.
A shopping trip or fun outing may provide a temporary mood boost, but it can’t treat depression. And telling a teenager that they have “nothing to be depressed about” doesn’t make their feelings disappear. It may simply teach them not to tell us about those feelings.
Instead, Jennifer encourages parents to allow the feeling to exist. If your teen is sad, let them be sad. If they need to cry, give them space to cry. You don’t have to rush them through the emotion.
Your Teen’s Feelings Aren’t a Parenting Report Card
This was another important part of our conversation.
When our teen is struggling, it is incredibly easy to make their distress mean something about us. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I wasn’t there enough. Maybe I should have handled something differently.
And when those thoughts get stirred up, we can unintentionally try to push our teen out of the feeling because their distress triggers our own fear, shame, or sense of inadequacy.
Sometimes the first person we need to check in with is ourselves.
What am I feeling right now? What meaning am I attaching to my teen’s behavior? Can I stay present with this without immediately trying to change it?
That shift can create room for a much different conversation.
Giving Depression a Name
Jennifer’s book, If My Depression Had a Name, was created in part because she saw a gap in resources for older kids and teens, especially around the middle school years.
There are many emotional-development books for younger children and more sophisticated resources for older teens, but middle schoolers can get stuck in between.
The book helps young people imagine depression as something separate from their entire identity. They can give it a name, a sound, a shape, or describe where they feel it in their body.
Because sometimes a teen can’t tell you, “I’m depressed.”
But they may be able to tell you what “Bob” feels like today.
And that gives families somewhere to begin.
If you’re seeing changes in your teen and wondering whether you’re looking at normal growing pains or something that deserves more attention, this episode is an important listen.
You don’t have to have the perfect words. Start with curiosity, keep connecting, and when something feels wrong, take it seriously.
Additional posts on this important subject:
Teen Mood Swings or Depression? How to Recognize the Signs and Support Your Teen