Here's a reason to try to change your childrens attitude: the most optimistic adolescents may be somewhat less likely to be depressed than their peers.
Here's a reason to try to change your children's attitude: the most optimistic adolescents may be somewhat less likely to be depressed than their peers.
Optimistic children do better in avoiding emotional and behavioural problems during the teenagers, but it in no way makes them immune to setbacks. There are a whole lot of other skills and experiences that are also important in getting through life.
Optimism has been associated with low risk of depression, heart attack and death, even after other important risk factors - like age, smoking and cholesterol - have been taken into account. Researchers examined optimism in 5,634 children who began taking part in the research when they were 12 to 14 years old in Australia. The children were asked about how they viewed the future, the world as it currently is and themselves. The children who were less optimistic generally were recognising positive things about the world or themselves rarely or only some of the time.
It was found that the quarter of children who were the most optimistic had almost half the risk of showing signs of depression, compared with those who were least optimistic. Being highly optimistic only had a 'modest' link to less heavy substance abuse and antisocial behaviour. The researchers figured that if everyone in the study had low levels of optimism, the number of new cases of depression would rise by 32 percent in any year, which is a big effect.
The above study did not prove that optimism directly causes children to be less depressed, as some factors could explain things. The study also suggests that the most optimistic children were not able to avoid having as many bad things happen in their lives as more pessimistic children.
Learning to get things in perspective and put yourself in the shoes of others are more realistic aims than simply trying to teach your teenager to always be positive about everything. The attitudes regarding optimism and pessimism that form in early life may play a big role in the choices that adults make about their health. It might be worthwhile to teach children about how to look at the world.
Optimistic children do better in avoiding emotional and behavioural problems during the teenagers, but it in no way makes them immune to setbacks. There are a whole lot of other skills and experiences that are also important in getting through life.
Optimism has been associated with low risk of depression, heart attack and death, even after other important risk factors - like age, smoking and cholesterol - have been taken into account. Researchers examined optimism in 5,634 children who began taking part in the research when they were 12 to 14 years old in Australia. The children were asked about how they viewed the future, the world as it currently is and themselves. The children who were less optimistic generally were recognising positive things about the world or themselves rarely or only some of the time.
It was found that the quarter of children who were the most optimistic had almost half the risk of showing signs of depression, compared with those who were least optimistic. Being highly optimistic only had a 'modest' link to less heavy substance abuse and antisocial behaviour. The researchers figured that if everyone in the study had low levels of optimism, the number of new cases of depression would rise by 32 percent in any year, which is a big effect.
The above study did not prove that optimism directly causes children to be less depressed, as some factors could explain things. The study also suggests that the most optimistic children were not able to avoid having as many bad things happen in their lives as more pessimistic children.
Learning to get things in perspective and put yourself in the shoes of others are more realistic aims than simply trying to teach your teenager to always be positive about everything. The attitudes regarding optimism and pessimism that form in early life may play a big role in the choices that adults make about their health. It might be worthwhile to teach children about how to look at the world.
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