Why do parents and adults think it's so taboo for children to experience things like depression?

Child: "Mom, I've been feeling really sad and depressed."
Mother: "Depressed?! Why don't be silly. Kids don't experience adult feelings like 'depression'."

I'm seventeen and have been going through depression for quite some time. Every time I would talk about it to an adult they would always blow me off and say "[I'm] not suppose to feel that. Those are adult feelings...blah blah blah." It's only now that my mom has finally realized this and my psychiatrist given me medication. However, before the medication, I developed another way of dealing with my depression....self-harm. I don't do it anymore (although I do have relapses from time to time). My parents do not know about my cutting, and neither does my therapist. The only people who know about this are some close friends of mine.

The thing that makes me so mad though is that this could have been all prevented if not my parents had not blown me off of my feelings. If my parents would have taken my feelings into consideration and got me help sooner than my self-harm would have never happened. And I'm not the one going through this, other kids are too. Parents don't take their child's feelings into consideration as much. They just believe "Oh,...well it's just school. How tough can it be?" or "Kids are resilient. They'll tough it out on their own." Then later when they find out that their children are out doing drugs, drinking, or God forbid, commit suicide or feeling suicidal. They take it like a brick to the head and then they're questioning as why "all of a sudden" their children are doing such dreadful things to themselves.

I'm not saying all parents do this, some do everything in their power to prevent this. I know that. However this isn't always the case. There are some parents out there who really don't find it necessary to help out and talk to their kids about their problems because they don't think they have any real problems to begin with.

I wanted to post this so that I can show the adults on here that believe kids don't have real problems when they do.

I've found some articles where young children are now escaping there problems with suicide because no one realized how bad it was until it was too late.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011...autopsy-report

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/scho...icle563538.ece