My almost 15 yr old daughter is depressed
 

She has no friends only school acquaintances. All of the girls at her school are superficial. How can I cheer her up? All she wants to do is sleep or stay on her Iphone. And she hates her school. :eek:

At the same age
 

So sorry to hear
I'm having four children
Three in their thirties
My nineteen year old has been a very difficult challenging road not only for her but new gor myself
Get her help ASAP
PLEASE HEAR ME
GET HER INTO GROUP
I have come to learn I am not the only parent who's child is not doing anything with their life
It is the phone phone phone and nothing else
No outside life
Still trying to get help
Very difficult to watch this happen to my child
Good wishes that you will have some success
She will need the right type of help
Me

Hello bobie: I'm sorry your daughter is having such difficulty. Welcome to NeuroTalk. May the time you spend here be of benefit. :Grin-Nod:

From my perspective, it's difficult to know if what you are observing is simply a combination of teenage angst plus the current focus kids nowadays have on their phone, or if this is a sign your daughter is actually struggling with a type of mood disorder. From my perspective at least there's a fine line that can potentially divide these two possibilities.

I'm primarily a member on NeuroTalk's sister website: PsychCentral. And I will tell you that the forums on PC are full of posts whose subject matter revolves around situations similar to your daughter's... most of the posts being written by the young people themselves... but occasionally by the parents too.

As I'm sure you are already painfully aware, there are no easy answers here. I wonder about possibly having your daughter seen by a school counselor or psychologist if her school has these types of professionals available. You could possibly also talk with her teachers. Perhaps you've already done so. Of course, you could also go straight for a mental health therapist not affiliated with your daughter's school. Realistically, though, in order for this to be of any real benefit, your daughter would need to be willing to do it. Trying to force her to participate in something like this is only likely to create dissension.

Sometimes it's helpful if there is something a parent & child can watch together that can serve as a starting point for discussion. There's an education writer named Parker J. Palmer. And, in one of his books, he refers to this as a "third thing". I don't know if either you, or your daughter, are familiar with California therapist Kati Morton. But Kati has a YouTube channel where she uploads videos on a wide variety of mental health topics. Kati is young & full of energy & very committed to helping young people, especially teenage girls & young women, to overcome emotional difficulties & mental health issues. Watching some of Kati's videos together might help the two of you to establish a conversation with regard to what's going on. By the way, Kati also has her own mental health website. If your daughter isn't familiar with it, she might check it out & find that to be of interest as well. Here's a link to Kati's YouTube channel. Your daughter can access Kati's website from her YouTube channel:

Kati Morton
- YouTube

Good luck!

Another thing to consider- bullying- can be physical or emotional.
If most issues are mainly school related , perhaps that is why...

How the generation has changed when social media and Facebook was the happening thing
 

I someone who graduated HS in 1979
Furthered my education
As I would long ago
Would have seen the world
As I studied to be a flight attendant
My life changed when I had married and had my babies
With the simplicity of a electric typewriter
Home row still based on the typewriter
Yet now the things I thought of when I was a little girl
Are now in our life everyday
We can see each other when we talk on the phone
I am frozen in time technology wise
I am limited
And I perfer it that way
So impersonal when used on a different level

My experience with four of my children the first three born in the early eighties
First one in 1981
From her to my youngest
Multifactoral reasons
And have expressed having watched very closely to all ingredients and in today's phone usages and no interest in anything life has to offer
Having had many to help

Meaning the professionals
It has become like a drug
Obsession phone usage
I am just a parent who watched her child have a difficult time at the same age starting high school
Not knowing anybody
Trying to define herself with the choices she had made and continues to make
I am saddened to watch it
This generation is like no other
A open mother I am
Help me understand
But I know addiction when I see it
It too goes hand in hand with other very important matters she does not want to get help for
Not things to be taken lightly
Won't mention them as I want to stay on point
No self esteem plus bullying the feel of no where to turn to
I have seen what social media has done to my children and I can say wholeheartedly I speak of my personal experience
And she is stuck
And she has to take charge and do something with her life
And to seek the help she needs
I kills to watch it happen
The world hears so much hate
I believe in Jesus Christ
Something my family knows and hears me speak to him throughout their life
Now it is being taken out of the things I sang in class as a little girl
Such as "God bless America
Land that I love
Stand beside her
and guide her
through the night
with the light
from above"
I do not shove any religion down anybodies belief
My children are in flux with where their heart and faith if any. Ones from
This j see in my family
And only speak of our experience
Hope I have been able to get out as a mommy