Non having more teenage children I have lost contact with that daily heartbeat that this delicate age of passage causes in the parents, increasingly unarmed in front of the wave of anxiety and depression that affects young people from all over the world.
The numbers speak clearly and tell us that every year there are 46 thousand suicides, more than one every 11 minutes, among teenagers in the world and that 20 percent of the boys say they feel often depressed.
Statistics seem abstract but anyone with friends with children between ten and 19 years of age knows what I’m talking about and It is not always easy to distinguish between a normal moment of difficulty due to growth and a true malaise which can lead to more serious consequences.
Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
The increase in mental disorders at a young age With consequent phenomena of self -harm or worse it is a certified fact and the loss of families in front of this tsunami is a social drama that can no longer go unnoticed.
Adolescence: how to recognize depression
The child neuropsychiatrist speaks with competence and passion Stefano Vicari in his latest book Interrupted teenagers. Intercept the discomfort before it is late (Feltrinelli). In this title are enclosed all our anxieties and our inability to understand the symptoms that, understood in time, can make the difference.
“Interrupted teenagers. Intercepting the discomfort before it is late” by Stefano Vicari (Feltrinelli)
We are distracted and fragile adults, at the mercy of a world that celebrates drives and narcissistic desires and invites us to focus only on ourselvesoften making us lose any empathy towards others, as Eva Illouz writes in Explosive modernity (Einaudi), another illuminating essay: “Modern culture invites us to continue to feel exquisitely unique individuals” and unable to pay attention even to our children who, as Vicari writes, More than listening to the rules that we sometimes give up without conviction, they form with the exampleobserving us day after day.
“Explosive modernity” by Eva Illouz (Einaudi)
It is not a question of guiding parentsoften left alone in the arduous task of educators, nor more generally school or company, but to offer all the necessary tools to face a contemporary malaise that is becoming a real emergency.
The precious work of years at the Operating Unit of Neuropsychiatry of the childhood and adolescence of the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital of Professor Vicari is all enclosed in this simple and easy to consult essay, A small treasure to help those who face the pain of the soul Even if he has long passed the age of adolescence.
All articles by Serena Dandini.
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