After years of decline, the suicide rate for kids ages 10 to 14 rose 76% between 2007 and 2017, according to the CDC. That’s a sobering increase: it’s risen threefold. Does it have anything to do with the nature of the world today?
Thinking back to my childhood in the 1950s and early 60s it’s obvious that overall, it was a more innocent time. Although we learned duck and cover to “protect” us should a nuclear bomb hit us (right….) I felt no particular fear of it actually happening and no anxiety over the act of ducking and covering. It was just something we did. I attached nothing at all to it.
Why not?
Probably because it had never happened. I had no image of what it would be like for a nuclear bomb to go off because when one did, I hadn’t been born yet. We didn’t see images of it all over.
Overall, the era I grew up in was a more innocent time for white people like me. A guileless time. It never occurred to us that someone could walk into our school with a gun and blow us all away. Or that a bomb could go off at a concert or event.
Why not?
Probably because it had never happened. So how could we imagine it?
But kids today know that those things HAVE happened in their world. They know because it’s all over the news, all over social media and schools are having to conduct active shooter drills as a result. This isn’t a “just in case” thing, it’s actually happened and kids have seen it in living color.
So is it no wonder that young people today are consumed with anxiety?
Why else?
Social media, too, have changed the environment kids live in. Those carefully curated posts, retouched selfies and the appearance of a life that most kids can only dream of–those images stick like glue. It’s only natural that children would compare themselves to these curated images …and find themselves coming up short.
That, too, is anxiety-producing. And those with anxiety disorders are more likely to have suicidal thoughts …. and to attempt it.
This is the world kids live in today and they are ill-equipped to handle its pervasive fear and anxiety. That’s why it’s incredibly important to monitor children for signs of anxiety and to let them know they are not alone. And to get help.
I encourage parents to do some reading about the signs of suicidal thoughts in kids (like this article, for example) and if they have any concerns at all, to discuss with their pediatrician or another knowledgeable professional.
But what’s most important is that kids know that they have a caring support system they can turn to. And that help is available.
Sadly, today, more than ever, it is critically important to be alert to what’s going on with kids–the stuff they aren’t talking about.
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I’m near the tail end of what’s called the US “baby boomer” generation. At my school, no guns, but a home room friend’s boyfriend killed himself by throwing himself in front of a train. There were two “riots” or two episodes of violence at my highschool. After the first (which had a race cause), there were police in the hallways for a few weeks, matrons in the women’s room (and one was closed for at least a year or two) as an assault had occurred in one of the women’s (or young women’s rooms). There was bullying in my 8th grade class. There were two sections of 8th grade, each section drove a teacher out of teaching (or into sick leave)–my section managed to put a new teacher into a melt-down. She didn’t return. Of my acquaintances and friends at school: two girls became pregnant (my highschool seems to have been usual for the time in that students who became pregnant were free to complete highschool). One friend was raped (no, she wasn’t drunk) at a party. An acquaintance had two abortions (same father each time) even though abortion was illegal in NY at the time–however, the father came from a well off family so his parents paid for safe abortions (probably a MD)
Another friend ran away w/some people her age while she was visiting her alcoholic mother in FL–the mother’s new BF & I guess the mother weren’t too welcoming. She returned to NY & to her father & his new wife by the time school started fortunately but she remained restive & I eventually lost touch w/her.
At that time I lived in a town of 20,000 on Long Island’s North shore. A “good” area and predominantly ‘white.’ But obviously it wasn’t a particularly “innocent” time. NY saw alot in the 1960’s & early 1970’s, riots, people fleeing the city, crime increasing as well as lot of that was exciting & interesting. UE was pretty high in NYC by the 1970’s, and inflation was quite high, over 10% for awhile–most people’s incomes didn’t keep pace. That was when some women returned to the workforce whether they wanted to or not. One of my friend’s father effectively lost his business (riots, et al in the city), had to start over, my friend started working part-time while in HS to help pay for college, her mother, who’d been out of the workforce for year, returned to work as a sales clerk in a department store.
I am also the child of a Holocaust survivor who never discussed all that had happened to her familyexcept in outline. Two close relatives were eventually deported by the Nazis to a “work” camp. While she & her parents escaped. She also lost friends (i.e, they were killed by the Nazis. One of the reasons she didn’t tell us (then, and later only w/alot of coaxing) was because she said, when she got to the US, no one wanted to know, to hear what she had say of what she’d seen and undergone. Although she did receive a scholarship to go to college. She probably also wanted to protect my sister & I. But some of her behaviors, her anxiety level w/regards to some areas of life, effected us all the same.
So, a more innocent childhood & life? In some ways, not in others. Which is not to say that some parts of my childhood weren’t very good.
It’s hard to imagine what it’s like for kids in school these days especially when we grew up in a much more innocent time for the most part. Social media is a wonderful thing but can also be overwhelming when everything is so immediate and in your face. It triggers events so easily that wouldn’t have happened otherwise and is equally hard on some adults.
When my son was 16 his best friend of over a dozen years committed suicide because he had gotten grounded. Kids think everything is so permanent.
That is heartbreaking to hear.
I’m sure nowhere feels safe to children anymore — not malls, church, theaters, or sadly, schools. No wonder there’s so much anxiety and I’m sure social media just compounds it.
No, they absolutely do not. I do not.
It’s a much different world. Thanks for bringing attention to this issue.
I wish I thought it were a better one!
Kids need to positively view getting help and parents need to know what signs to look for.
Yes…parents need to keep communication lines loving and open.