Why So Many Child Suicides?

Teen (and younger!) suicide is on the rise. Why?

Even in the very well-regarded school district that I live in, there is a special social worker who goes from school to school teaching suicide prevention and documenting suicides and attempted suicides. At the worst, just a few years ago, there were three suicides in this district in one week.

I actually had a chance to speak to the social worker. She didn’t have all the answers; but she led me to some of the factors that contribute – differently in each case. When the factors accumulate and make the child despair AND the child sees no way out of that despair, then suicide becomes possible.

Personal contact and communication can prevent despair, even when bad factors overwhelm the child, because there is help finding a way out. Despair must be detected, first.

Traditionally, bullying has been a problem. This school district has a strong anti-bullying program. But bullying goes on forever, it is human (kid) nature. And the victim is often ashamed to tell anyone because that would just validate their feeling of inadequacy. A teacher might notice bullying. A parent can always ask about it – and explain how they handled it. (We all had a bit of it to overcome, didn’t we?)

The 24-hour news cycle is a new problem for kids who pay attention. And kids absorb more than we might think. Bad news grabs all the headlines – murder, forest fire, hurricane, drought, starvation, incurable diseases – all repeated on all platforms all day long. With new bad news tomorrow. History teachers can provide perspective – today’s disasters are a lot like previous disasters, just reported more immediately and with more gory detail. Social studies teachers can provide relief by pointing out the good news that is also happening – miracle cures, recoveries from disasters, species saved from extinction, rising standards of living pretty much everywhere. Parents can provide balance by watching less news and by discussing current events from an older and wiser point of view.

Climate change/global warming has affected kids for a generation or two and the bottom line seems to be that our planet will not be habitable in forty years or so – when our kids get to our age. How scary! And there is nothing they can about it; the problem is too big and whole countries are not even taking it seriously. I despair (Ha!) that teachers will do anything about this; I think most of them share the opinion. Parents, or maybe grandparents, can recount to the kids that before global warming was the fear, global cooling was the fear. Time magazine had a cover warning about ‘Snowball Earth.’ Also, parents recall that we have had less than twenty years to fix this problem – or else! - since the 1980s. Even granting the premise, obviously the timeline has been exaggerated. We have time to fix it. They are not going to die.

Social media injects stress directly into their eyeballs. Not just the bad news. The stress of keeping up, of being as worthy as other users, having the same nice stuff and cool times to report. Tap, post, tap. There are signs that we may have reached peak Facebook. But God knows what other portals the kids are on now. Actually parents should know. Parents should have access to everything their kids do, especially their young kids. And exercise that access. Good luck getting your high school senior to give you that access, Ha! But who owns the phone and pays the bill? By senior year you should have taught them well enough, anyway, I guess.

Respect, actually lack of respect, feeds hopelessness. I was raised to call adults by their last name and Mr or Mrs. Or Sir or Ma’am if I didn’t know their name. Police and teachers and preachers deserved special respect for what they did for us. I assumed politicians were honorable – but that was the first crack in that wall! Now we may not even know our neighbors – the kids don’t even get to (or want to) play outside together – certainly not alone. Teachers have trouble maintaining discipline, with no ability to apply physical force or any meaningful escalation to the principal. Preachers? How many go to church every week? Police? Ferguson and Baltimore tarnished their shine. Respect is earned; but it is also taught by example. If adults treat each other with respect and refer to traditional institutions as respectable, then the kids will see that, internalize that, and emulate that.

Human contact, human touch, is disappearing – but oh so necessary. Teachers can’t touch kids anymore; but parents can and should, often. Parents should touch each other to model correct behavior. Parents should touch/hug/kiss their kids regularly to let them know they are loved. A kiss goodbye before school means a lot more than a happy face text message from work!

Psychotropic drugs are the last factor that I looked into. Now, more than seven million (7,000,000!) kids are on on psychotropic drugs for ADD/ADHD/Depression. A listed side effect for many of those drugs is ‘SUICIDAL THOUGHTS.’ Teachers can resist referring merely rambunctious kids for chemical intervention. Schools can reinstitute recess to dissipate rambunctiousness. Parents can refuse to dose or overdose their kids.

My conclusion is that teachers and parents can do enough to prevent child suicide – UNLESS psychotropic drugs are involved. Those drugs inject suicidal thoughts by themselves – add in one or more of the other factors and a bad end may occur unexpectedly.