The theme of violence, especially against women and children, has really taken hold on these pages as a subject of conversation since, unfortunately, women in great numbers continue to suffer from violence or be exposed to it around the world. And if we don’t continue to raise our voices and point out incident after incident after incident after incident then surely there will never be a cessation of hostilities. But since I tend to be a micro person, seeing everything through the lens of my life, and trying to understand the big picture through the daily comings and goings of my life, I have to bring up another type of violence that we see far too often, a self-inflicted form of violence—suicide—that has “visited” my life in the past week. A boy at the high school where I teach committed suicide. For what is suicide if not violence against the self, and, perhaps, against society too? And the thoughts that have swirled around my head, though different than when contemplating violence inflicted on another, cause me to pause and contemplate how commonplace violence has become in our world.
The horror of a young man deciding to cut short his life was exacerbated, for me, when I heard my 12-year old daughter’s response to my telling her what had happened. I was going to use his tragic death as a segue to give her the “suicide is wrong and there is always a resolution to any problem” speech, but after I told her about what had happened, she looked at me and told me that a boy in her class this year had committed suicide. A seventh grade boy had committed suicide and a seventh grade girl hadn’t been upset enough about it to tell her mother that day when she got home from school. I was stunned. Stunned by the implicit acceptance of such a tragic act. Stunned by the non-stun factor this news was to her. Stunned from how sad it is that this is the world my daughter lives in. Every adult to whom I had told about this young man’s death had chills when I told him or her. But here, my sensitive daughter accepted it as part of the flow of life. It was not an aberration to her. And when I had my classes do a free write in the days following the suicide, only a few students commented on it—and those were generally children who had known him or knew someone who had known him. The others had either forgotten about it or it had never really entered their consciousness—both equally upsetting responses. (Granted, the school hadn’t stressed how he had died, but word gets around—if it did to the teachers, surely it did to the students.) So I guess the stun factor is the non-stun factor itself.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry says that “suicide is the third leading cause of death (behind accidents and homicides) for teenagers. Each year more than 5,000 U.S. teenagers commit suicide.” And that doesn’t even touch on the number who attempt suicide or contemplate it, which apparently are highest in middle adolescence.
Which brought me to thinking about the meaning and purpose of life. Do too many of our children have none? (Do too many of us have none to transfer to them?) Do they not take life seriously since it is so often treated slightly in movies and TV and games? What is the point—a point—that will get them to see a point? I had seen middle age (admission here) as a time when I would be confronted with illness and death and sorrow, why are tweens and teens dealing each other—and themselves—these cards?
Self-Inflicted Domestic Violence: Tween and Teen Suicide
Posted in The WIP Talk, Uncategorized
Dear Laura, Thank you bringing up this topic. I was a teacher for 10 years and I cannot even put into words what it is like when a student commits suicide.
I cannot believe that your daughter’s school did not inform all the parents that a student had committed suicide. That seems incredibly negligent. I think it is so important that suicide is not brushed aside – schools have an obligation to teach young impressionable minds that suicide is not an option.
As I write this, all the stories of violence that we published in the last week are swimming around in my mind. Women who have survived the most violent brutality imaginable are sharing their stories and therefore educating us so we can do something to end the violence. Through the stories of these survivors, we will overcome the violence.
Thanks for your comment, Kate. Not only did the middle school not send out an email informing the parents, but at the high school, there was no official word that the student’s death was a suicide. Perhaps the parent’s were ashamed, but that, in and of itself, is, I think, part of the problem. If too many “personal problems” or family issues stay within the four walls of a house, then there is no end in sight.
When I am blunt with people and tell them that my ex-husband was emotionally and verbally abusive to me, they all seem to have stories to relate: a sister or a friend. The openness is, to me, crucial to improving our society (and in that I mean the global one). Talk talk talk: there is power to words, and not just to oppress but to overcome the oppression.
There is a saying that we are as sick as out secrets. Truly, talking in a supportive environment is a step toward finding solutions.
Even if schools choose to, or are required to, protect students’ information, parents can decide to make things public. It would be a good thing in cases like these.
Thanks for bringing attention to this part of the issue of violence in our world toward women and children.
Nancy, thanks so much for your comment. I never heard that saying before, but I will certainly make others hear it in the future.
I hope that those parents, when they have, perhaps, absorbed the initial pain of loss, will elect to speak out.
When I mentioned to the head of my department that we need to find books that address the issues that these kids are confronting, her response was that we are not trained in that and that is what the counselors are for. But aren’t all adults, especially those who chose to educate children, responsible for the whole child, not just one’s specialty? I know that when we read Romeo and Juliet later this year, I will certainly talk about their suicides in a more direct way than I have in the past.
This is one of the most tragic realities facing our society today and one that has touched me too many times. So many of the pre-teens and teens that I’ve worked with admitted to having suicidal thoughts and some of them had attempted while on my “watch.” A few that I worked with were in full-blown crisis, had either already attempted or been hospitalized. Many times, their parents were in crisis themselves, disempowered for any number of reasons or simply emotionally or otherwise unequipped to “be there” for their children.
As usual, not enough resources exist at the school level to address this problem for the kids who have no safety net and the kids know that. Some of the kids most at risk appear not to be on the surface, going undetected until they get busted for being truant, start acting out in other ways, are in crisis or until it’s too late to help them.
Young people regularly grapple with ideas and questions that we assume they’re too young to even consider. That is one of the biggest mistakes we can make with kids and a subsequent failure of the support systems designed to help them. We have to remember how interminably long a school year used to seem when we were in middle school – how tragic the breakups and social rejections were that we all suffered through as insecure pre-teens. For some kids who don’t have someone at home to talk to, to get wise counsel or even just a compassionate ear from, these childhood struggles seem as though they’ll go on forever – they have yet to recognize how little they know now and how much happier they’ll be when they get through one of the most trying times of life – the teen years.
One of the most important findings in childhood resilience points back to how important a confidant can be. Children who have at least 1 (and it only takes 1) person whom they can talk to, tell their problems to – who will listen without judgement – are far more likely to prove emotionally resilient, even through the most terrible circumstances or abuse.
So even when the administration says, “We’re not trained,” we should all nod our heads and then go ahead and do what we know is right – “be there” for children when they need us and even when they don’t need us. We should “be there” all the time. It takes a village to raise a child.
Thanks for this important post, Laura.
– Sarah