"This book is about depression in children and teenagers during their school years, from 5 to 18. It is written primarily for parents, but we hope that teachers, social workers, health visitors and family doctors will also find it useful. Why do parents need to know about possible depression in their children? All children get sad and miserable from time to time. Sometimes it is difficult to know if such normal unhappiness needs special attention. We aim to help parents in this situation. This is an example of a situation in which a mother describes how first she thought her son's problem was nothing much to worry about but then she had to change her mind: Ben's mother, a teacher, described the change that came over her ten-year-old son after a short viral illness"--