This has been happening in Palo Alto, CA for a few years now, usually as a result of too much pressure to be successful in a highly competitive environment. I've unfortunately been on a couple of the Cal-trains that kids have jumped in front of. Not sure if it's the same cause of the suicides in your area, but this Atlantic article does a pretty good job of explaining it. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/
Thats crazy. I was just talking to my 14 year old about that. I told him that i dont want him to stress too much on academics. He comes home gets on his laptop and starts studying. He's in the Honor society and will start high school football.
I have multiple kids - more than 2 This is a big concern of mine. My eldest is only 7 but you already start seeing peer pressure, being concerned about what other kids might think, etc. Because kids are inherently that way I think. I mean not all of them, and to differing degrees....
This happened at my high school when I was a kid -- our rival Clear Creek made a huge sign for the annual football game that said, 'Kill Lake before they kill themselves'. The suicides were national news for a while... http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/14/us/houston-suburb-institutes-anti-suicide-plan.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...mmunity/e4d77ae4-f905-456a-bd7a-52130102cb33/
One of the things that gets discussed in college towns is the statistical likelihood of suicides breeding subsequent suicides, so-called copy cat suicides. So it may be misleading to label a group of suicides as an "epidemic" (and any suicide is one too many) when it is statistically more likely that suicides will be grouped together than solitary. No solace here I realize, but something to add to the mix. A decent overview at wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide
If you want to decrease the likelyhood that your kid will commit suicide, the first step is to stop putting your kid on prescription drugs and using that as an escape to spend less quality time with them. If your kid says they're depressed or if they're struggling with something the best prescription is to actually sit down and like spend time with them and stuff, take them out of the environment and do something with them. Too many parents just hand their kids smart phones, ipads and prescription drugs and use that as a means to avoid having to actually be what I would describe as a good parent. It would also be a very good thing for more children to grow up in two parent families rather than single parent ones. But, that's a more difficult issue to solve and I'm not any sort of a white knight of examples on that. These are just the dudes thoughts here because I'm in the thought machine right now.
back when I was in high school, one of the most popular kids killed himself. He was an athlete, good looking, and not a jerk. He always seemed really sensitive and slightly insecure though. Bullying isn't the problem for most teen suicides IMO. most kids are smart enough to realize that kinda stuff is just words. Most people who kill themselves do it for reasons far deeper reasons than bullying IMO
Both the behavioral counseling and incidentally academic/career advisory functions at schools could be a little more robust. More than just one or two staffers per grade. A private or boarding school would probably designate a faculty advisor and a couple of senior peer counselors for each student.
Yeah, that was a big deal (fights/ suspensions/ etc.) -- the suicides were also the start of a lot of weird **** that happened in Clear Lake that made national news.
Ah, you must be an alumnus of the Swoly D Institute of Higher Than Thou Dichotomies. Depression doesn't exist--you just need to ride a bike!
This is a prime example of social media causing a young kid to take his own life. This is senseless. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mom-says-social-media-prank-led-to-11-year-old-sons-suicide/ "A mother is speaking out about the tragic death of her 11-year-old son, who, she says, decided to end his own life as a result of a cruel “social media prank.”"
