Kids' Emotional Distress Fuels Self-Doubt
Excerpt By Gary Gately, HealthScoutNews

Children who suffer depression and anxiety are likely to underestimate their abilities, says a new study.

And the effects are not fleeting: Even a year after suffering emotional distress, children were likely to view themselves and the world in a negative light, researchers report in the March/April issue of Child Development. Even if moods remained stable, the children's views of their abilities continued to slide, the study found.

The study tracked 932 Illinois elementary schoolchildren -- half boys, half girls -- for a year through three detailed tests given six months apart. The tests were designed to measure depression and anxiety levels as well the children's views of themselves and the world and their perceptions of their competency.

Researchers compared the children's perceptions of their academic competence with reality by assessing grades in all subjects.

Eva M. Pomerantz, the study's lead author, says children who suffer emotional distress typically blame themselves for failures, while attributing success to factors beyond themselves. For instance, a child might assume he got a good grade because his teacher was in a good mood.

These children also harbor uncertainty about whether they can meet established standards and suffer low self-esteem about their social skills, says Pomerantz, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"You hear about people wearing rose-colored glasses; well, this is sort of the reverse of wearing rose-colored glasses," Pomerantz says.

Children with depression or anxiety may be more vulnerable to feelings of inadequacy than adults with the conditions because kids are less likely to realize how moods influence thinking, Pomerantz says.

"Because children have not had the same experience as adults with managing their moods, they may not be as good at discounting the influence their moods have on them," she says. "Kids might be less likely than adults to say, 'It's not that I am bad; it's just that I am in a bad mood.'"

Beset by doubts about their abilities, such children tend to avoid pursuing challenging tasks.

"We think that once kids start to have these views of themselves, they pursue easy tasks and they say, 'Oh yeah, I succeeded at an easy task, but anybody could do that,'" Pomerantz says.

Such thought patterns can spiral, putting children at risk for "lifetime difficulties," she says. "They think, 'I don't have the ability to do well in school, I don't have the skills. I'm not even going to apply to college; nobody would accept me.'"

The study, focusing on children between grades 4 through 6, found girls more vulnerable to emotional distress than boys. Girls, in turn, were more likely to underestimate their abilities -- except in social situations because communication skills may keep girls from underestimating their social skills, the authors say.

The study cited earlier research suggesting that for some children, low self-esteem may lead to emotional distress, while for others, emotional distress may contribute to low self-esteem.

James E. Maddux, a clinical psychologist at George Mason University in Virginia, says the study establishes how lasting the effects of depression and anxiety in children can be.

"What's important to me is this idea that the experience of depression and anxiety apparently had an impact a year later on their beliefs about their ability to do very important things in life," Maddux says.

Self-doubt stemming from emotional distress can set the stage for a vicious cycle, he says. "If someone doesn't believe he or she can accomplish something," Maddux explains, "he or she gives up easily in the face of challenges and says, 'See, I failed.' So what you have is a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Maddux says parents should recognize that emotional distress can affect children's views of their abilities and look for signs that their children have lost some self-confidence or seem be falling short of their potential.

Parents can help by offering reassurance -- for instance, by telling their children mood can contribute to self-doubt, but their feelings aren't grounded in reality, and they haven't really lost any of their ability.

Most children who have brief or mild depression or anxiety will regain their confidence in their abilities, Maddux says. However, he says if a lack of confidence, lower grades, or social isolation persists for more than six months or a year, it might be time to consider counseling for the child and parents.

More information

Visit the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for more on childhood depression and anxiety. Or read about about the prevalence of childhood anxiety disorders.

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