This essay will focus on understanding depression in children in early childhood (2-6 years) and adolescence (12-18 years ) through Brofenbrenner’s theory of ecological systems. This theory examines a child's development from the perspective of the system of relationships that forms his or her environment. Here you will find a description of the impact of family, school, community and other systems, according to Brofenbrenner, on their lives. This will also show the influence of attachment theory and how it interacts with the causes of depression that can arise in early childhood and adolescents. Urie Brofenbrenner is unique in his theory, "highlighting the need to understand development in terms of the everyday environment in which children are raised, a concern that is rarely the focus of many other theories" (Bukatko, D. 2008, p 28). He believes that development needs to be studied outside of laboratories and in the environment we live in in order to have a full perspective. “One of Brofenbrenner's major theoretical contributions was his comprehensive portrait of the environment – ​​the ecological forces and systems that exist at many different but interdependent levels – and the bidirectional, reciprocal relationships that exist between them” (Bukatko, D. 2008). It describes this process in five distinct layers which are the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem and the chronosystem. The first layer is the microsystem, this layer is the one that is closest to the child and also contains the structures with which the child has direct contact with. Structures found within the microsystem include family, school, neighborhood, and child care. The Mesosystem is the......middle of paper......brenner, we can see the many things that can be attributed to these feelings. The influence of the environment in a person's life can be either encouraging or unenthusiastic. Nevertheless; the strongest connection is within the microsystem, where attachment with parents is so important in a child's development. Works CitedBukatko, D. (2008). Child and adolescent development: a chronological approach, 1st edition. Mason: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Herman, Reinke, Parkin, Traylor, and Agarwal (2009). Psychology in the Schools: Wiley Periodicals, Inc, Vol 46(5).Luby, Joan MD (2009) Treatment in Psychiatry: Am J Psychiatry, 166:974-979Paquette & Ryan (2001) Accessed February 6, 2011 at http:/ /pt3.nl.edu/paqutteryanwebquest.pdfSokolova, Irina (2003) Retrieved February 7, 2011 from http://www.peronalityresearch.org/papers/sokolova.html