Interventions to help overcome or better manage depression and low mood

Recognise unhelpful thoughts and reduce their power

When experiencing emotional difficulties, especially if the child or young person is feeling depressed or anxious, they may engage in unhelpful thinking.

Helping the child or young person to become more aware of their thoughts, and how these thoughts can impact upon how they feel about something, and how in turn this can impact upon how they then respond or behave, is a helpful first step to reducing the power and impact of unhelpful thoughts.

Developing more positive thoughts the children and young people can repeat to themselves can help balance out times when thinking becomes more negative. This may come in the form of helping the child or young person to write positive affirmations or statements about themselves and their life. For example, writing on post-it notes positive encouraging messages that others believe are true about the child or young person and sticking them up for the them to read (such as inside their wardrobe door, or around their bathroom mirror) can remind them that people care about them, that they do have strengths and good qualities, that positive things are happening in their life, and that the difficulties they are experiencing now will end and not last forever.

Doing more of the things the child or young person enjoys and feels confident in

Sometimes when a child or young person is struggling with their emotional wellbeing, they can begin to stop doing things that they used to gain pleasure from. Helping them to identify things they used to enjoy doing and importantly, things that were important to the child or young person and added value in their life, can be helpful in breaking the cycle that can come with low mood and depression of disengagement, isolation and inactivity.

As a supportive practitioner, you can help the child or young person to re-engage with a previously enjoyed task (like watching a favourite TV programme, or returning to a preferred hobby) even if it’s just for a short amount of time. Afterwards they may report they have completed the activity but still didn’t enjoy it much and you may need to recognise with them that sometimes it takes time for the enjoyment to return but that if they keep completing the task on a more regular basis, this could have a helpful impact in lifting their mood. Initially, they may rely upon trusted adults to help them complete activities and facilitate communications and interactions with others.

But encouraging and supporting the child or young person to continue with small steps of reintroduction and activity on a regular basis can begin to make a positive difference to their emotional wellbeing. Completing activities that enhance how the child or young person feels about themselves and their life can help strengthen a more positive self-identity and enhance self-esteem.

If you would like to find out more about this topic, you can explore managing depression and low mood here.