Adolescence is a transitional stage from childhood to adulthood. It involves physical changes, psychological changes and development. On the other hand, depression is where a person feels low in mood and repulsion to activities which affect someone’s sense of well-being, feelings, thoughts and behaviour. There are many signs and symptoms contributing to adolescence depression. They include; change of behaviour and attitude. This is evident from problems emerging from school going children. There is also evidence from social activities and home or other sectors of life. You find that these teenagers tend to change their usual behaviour which eventually cause significant distress and problems. Most of these behavioural changes are; poor school performance and absenteeism from school. There is also tiredness, loss of energy, socially disturbed such that they tend to isolate themselves from people, there is regular complaints of headaches and other body aches leading to regular visits to nurse, they develop dangerous and disruptive behaviour, others start using drugs, there is also changes in appetite such that others loose appetite and finally, there is increased cravings for certain food leading to weight loose or weight gain.

Discussion:Adolescence – a Transitional Stage

Discussion:Adolescence – a Transitional Stage

Discussion:Adolescence – a Transitional Stage

In addition there are also emotional signs which include; loss of interest and pleasure in normal activities, there is low self-esteem, there is increased sensitivity to failure and rejection, there is the feeling of hopeless, feeling sad causing them to cry for no reason, there is thoughts of death, others think of committing suicide and feeling worthless and guilt. There are many methods of preventing teenage depression. They are divided into three categories that is; primary prevention, secondary prevention and tertiary prevention. These methods are discussed n the following three paragraphs.

Primary prevention

basically is practised at home. Normally administered by parents or guardians. The prevention involves parents or guardians talking and listening to their children. They should encourage the children to get involved in activities and programs that shape and build their behaviour and coping with their stress. Parents and guardians should get involved in the same activities as this will build the bond and reduce the emotions to teenagers. Moreover, the children will open up their problems, sharing them with their parents hence, making the parents and guardians their role models and partners in their time of need and help.

Secondary prevention aims at reducing the effects and impacts of already existing behaviours. It is basically practised by treating the behaviour and practices on the teenagers as soon as possible so as to stop the damage and mend the already ruined behaviour. This is done to prevent the long term or the eminent threat that may occur to the teenager for example; the imminent suicide, addiction of drugs and bad behaviour.

Tertiary prevention involves hospitalization of the extreme bad behaviour, these includes psychological and medical therapy to the child or teenager (Bridge, Kolko & Brent, 2003). The affected person may also be taken to a rehabilitation centre to reduce the setback and reoccurrence the behaviour. This prevention includes modifying the risk factors so that it can accommodate room for recovery. The main aim for this prevention is to enable and give back the person his/ her ability to see that life is worth living

Dealing with adolescence depression has been sensitised such that there are available resources to educate the affected teenagers. It is provided in education curriculum and is being taught on how to get involved in activities that reduce the depression. Given an example; parents and community are being advised to get more involved and work together in order to promote the well-being and health of students in the school. This encourage family and community to promote the good behaviours and healthy family relations. The community will be able to follow the progress of all the students and pupils on their academics and changes in their behaviours recommending solutions for every issue arising. There are also resources available on the internet regarding the stages on every child’s growth and how to deal with certain behaviours arising along the way. These gives guidelines and steps taken by each guardian and parent to take the necessary step in any arising behaviour amongst their children. The nursing intervention that can be used in order to assist an adolescent that is depressed is offering the victim with psychosocial treatments.

References

Bridge, J. A., Kolko, D. J., & Brent, D. A. (2003). for Adolescent Depression. depression (editorial), 33, 959-967.

Birmaher, B., Ryan, N. D., Williamson, D. E., Brent, D. A., Kaufman, J., Dahl, R. E., … & Nelson, B. (2006). Childhood and adolescent depression: a review of the

past 10 years. Part I. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 35(11), 1427-1439.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

 

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
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Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
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I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
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For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
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Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
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The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
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