Teacher Burnout: Depression too?

A new study suggests a significant connection between depression and burnout among primary school teachers. Many of the signs of burnout such as, being more cynical, lacking energy, lacking interest, needing to work harder to accomplish less, or changes in sleep or eating, are also seen in the early onset of depression. This study offers some evidence to support an implied, long standing, qualitative correlation.

Drs. Irvin S. Schonfeld of the City College of New York’s Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership and Renzo Bianchi of the Institute of Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, discovered a significant overlap between burn out and depression.

Their findings looked at survey results from 1,386 pre-k to 12th grade US teachers that were assessing for burn out. they found that 86% of the burnout group met criteria for depression whereas less than 1% of the no burnout group met criteria for depression. Teachers in the burnout group are also found to be more than two times as likely to have history of anxiety. This supports another long-standing correlation between depression and anxiety. This article appears in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. Charles R Davenport Psy.D. LLC provides counseling and therapy services to help teachers and other professionals be aware of burnout, worked to overcome it when it does interfere, and to strive toward avoiding burnout where possible.

ADHD: Children must Squirm to Learn!

In his experience working with young students, adolescents, and adults who have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) Dr. Charles R. Davenport has found that allowing physical movement makes it easier to learn and pay attention.

Recent research from the University of Central Florida found that leg swinging, foot tapping, and chair schooling movements of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is actually critical for ADHD kids to learn. “The typical interventions target reducing hyperactivity. It’s exactly the opposite of what we should be doing for a majority of children with ADHD,” Mark Rapport, one of the study authors, said in a statement. “The message isn’t ‘Let them run around the room,’ but you need to be able to facilitate their movement so they can maintain the level of alertness necessary for cognitive activities.”

In a classroom setting excessive movement can be seen as interfering with other students ability to learn, students willful disobedience, or proof of insufficient attention. When the students are told to “stop moving and pay attention” they likely have bad feelings about being called out as well as intensifying feelings of discomfort in trying to sit still which can be a monumental task for students with ADHD.

Sometimes the solution is not to work harder but to work smarter where we can use our understanding of our strengths and weaknesses to thrive. People with ADHD are never going to feel comfortable sitting perfectly still, at least not without stimulant medication. This is not necessarily a bad thing that can transition into not only a problematic situation academically but can also have significant emotional fallout.

please contact Dr. Charles R Davenport if you or someone you know struggles with ADHD or ADD.