Depression in Children

It is a quiet collapse. A child who was just playing, laughing, asking questions and running about becomes slower. Quieter. The eyes grow flatter. The joy in hot chocolate, in a favourite book, in racing across the yard — it does not disappear with a bang, but seeps away like water through a fine crack. The child withdraws, or suddenly becomes angry, or complains of stomachache, headache, fatigue, without a doctor finding anything. Sometimes it sleeps too much. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes it barely eats. Sometimes it stuffs into itself what it feels.