For many years, the medical community has known that when moms are depressed, it puts their children at risk for more emotional and behavioral problems but until recently, the impact of fathers’ emotional health on the children was unexamined. According to a new study which appears in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics, a child’s odds of developing emotional or behavioral problems increase by as much as 70% if the father shows signs of depression. That’s smaller than the increased risk associated with depressed moms, but it’s still significant.
“For years we’ve been studying maternal depression and how it affects children, but the medical community has done a huge disservice by ignoring fathers in this research,” said Michael Weitzman, the study’s lead author and professor of pediatric medicine at New York University. “These findings reinforce what we already assumed — that fathers matter, too, and they matter quite a lot.” The situation is even worse for the children when both parents are depressed.
The study tracked problems in children such as feeling sad or nervous, acting out at school, or fighting with family and peers. Normally, when both parents are mentally healthy, only 6% of children exhibit serious emotional or behavioral problems. However, if dads are depressed, then 11% of the time the kids have problems. If moms are depressed, the percentage goes to 19%, and if both parents are depressed, the risk goes up to 25%.When dads are depressed, it has more impact on their sons. Specifically, the study found that the kids who were impacted the most by dad’s depression were 12- to 17-year-old boys.
The message of this study is very clear. When one person in a family is suffering, it affects everyone else, especially if the person suffering is one of the parents. Every time anyone gets on an airplane, they are told that if the oxygen mask drops down, parents should first put the mask on themselves and then on our children. So too, all dads should get some form of treatment for depression if only for the well-being of their kids. The most effective treatment for mood disorders is often a combination of counseling and medication. Since women, according to numerous research studies, are typically more willing to get medical and psychological help, I’m assuming they will do the same. For anyone reading this blog, please encourage your husbands, fathers, brothers and sons to get counseling help when they have symptoms of depression. The health of the whole family depends on it!
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