[Pierro]

How do you stop the spread of depression through your whole family. I am very depressed at the moment and I try to pretend that everything is okay but it's fake, it's forced and transparent. I dont want my depression ruining my young kids life. My fear is that they will grow up and think it is normal to be depressed, because somebody said to me that it can be learned behaviour. If you grow up in a household where depression is evident, you will grow up just like that.

[Rohag]

Hello, Pierro. I find myself wanting to challenge the assertions that depression is learned behaviour and that your child will learn it.

Over the course of the past century and longer researchers have studied depression and proposed different models of what it is and how it works. Among those models you will find a few presenting individual depression as learned behaviour. If I understand correctly, more recent models have moved away from strict behaviourist approaches. Doc John, Doc Clyde and I know others here can talk at length about this stuff.

Obviously, your depression affects yourself and your home life in ways that will influence your children. Further, there's the possibility children will inherit a genetic predisposition to depression. None of that dooms them to becoming depressed. At worst, the influences and the genetics might lower their threshold for developing depression in the future.

The fact you are asking this question indicates your concern, care and love - the most powerful preventatives available.