''The happiest days of your life''

'The happiest days of your life' have never been the plain sailing care-free days they are painted to be. Childhood, and especially adolescence is never an entirely easy time - yes children don't usually have to worry about paying the mortgage, getting to work on time, or bringing up little'uns and holding a marriage together, but for little people little problems mean big, big deals. For any happy, healthy child that first fall out with out 'bestest ever friend' is the end of the world. For any happy-go-lucky little tot losing a favourite toy, not getting a favourite food or a rainy day is enough to deeply, and I believe quite genuinely, upset them. However, throw into the mix broken marriages, drink and money problems amongst parents, and early exposure to death, disease and disaster on TV and in computer games...and you have children with seriously big concerns. I'm not attributing serious mental health issues to what thousands of children go through every day. All I'm saying is, it's really no surprise that our children aren't as happy as we want them to be - childhood isn't easy, and it certainly isn't getting any easier.

Here, via the BPS (as usual) is a new report from the BBC on rising cases of anxiety and depression in children - right down to under 5s. It's almost shocking, almost unsurprising - but either way it's sad. While we're all so busy debating what diagnosis means, and why we should or shouldn't be giving mental-illness patients drugs...this report really begs the question why are we letting this continue, what are we going to do about it and when will we sit up and listen?

Childhood will never be easy. It's a time of physical and emotional development that naturally leads to confusion, discontent and volatility. Modern life doesn't make it any easier. But this is a real issue, happening now. While the news, and our minds focus on the depression should we not be worrying about the depression in our children...

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18251582)