If You Do Five Things with your Child: Talking with Your Child about Depression and Suicide

   

   This is some advice I have used before with parents and groups that I have spoken to when it comes to dealing with teens and/or your own children and the issue of self-harm and suicide.


1.  Communicate with your child and build a relationship of trust that will allow them to openly come to you when they are having depressive or suicidal thoughts and feelings. 

2.     Do not judge. Do not get mad. A local college student who travels around talking to young people told us at a workshop that the turning point in his life was when his mom walked in while he was cutting and she did not get angry. She took the razor and said “You need help. I am here to help. I love you. Now….let’s go get help.”. Saved his life, changed his life.

3.       Watch for signs of depression.  And address it when you see it. Mental health “injuries” and “sickness” are just like physical injuries and sickness. Seek medical help and support.

4.       Get other eyes on your child. You can’t watch them all of the time, but let their coach, counselor, principal, teacher know. And partner with these people.

5.       Love.  Sounds so simple, but love with your words. Love with your actions. Love with your closeness, your hugs, your touch.

Bullying in Sports: National High School Coaches Convention

I'm excited to have the opportunity to present to coaches from across the country today who have an interest in learning more about bullying and how they can be a big part of the effort to stop bullying before it happens. Here is a version of the powerpoint that I am presenting today. I am not sure if the links work and if the background formatting came through like I hoped, but I may edit it later to fix these. Thank you!

Bullying presentation for National Coaching Convention

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More Recent Updates from Partnership for a Drug Free America

  As I do every once in awhile, I have posted some of the more interesting and important blog posts from the last few weeks at the Partnership for a Drug Free America website/blog. Please take a look at the summaries below and click on the article link to learn more. Most articles are very short but contain some really good information that may be helpful to parents and students in our community. Thanks for reading!

Amount of Sleep Affects Sports Injuries click here! At Carlisle, we have a lot of students involved in sports and many spend several hours a day doing their sporting activity. This new study evaluated all sorts of factors and how they may affect injury rates and one of only the few factors that showed they may cause more injuries was lack of sleep. And in talking with many middle school students, I realize that several middle schoolers get less sleep than recommended for their age (8-9 hours a night). After reading this, I encourage you to talk more with your own children, maybe do more research, and make sure they have undistracted sleep (get those electronics out of their room!!)

California Suicide Prevention Websites Helps Everyone click here!  Great site with lots of information about suicide and suicide prevention. It will be a nice resource for me, but a great resource for any family or student who feels they may be at risk of suicide or having suicidal thoughts.

Bath Salts Causing Maine Parents to Give Up Their Children click here!  We see more and more news stories about these synthetic drugs and their effects. This effect, the effect of foster families increasing because parents are getting addicted to bath salts and not caring for their kids anymore, is maybe one of the saddest effects I have seen. Shows you the true damage to person, family, and society these "supposedly harmless" synthetic drugs are actually causing.

Prescription Drug Abuse on the Rise and Teens/Young Adults Causing It click here!  Prescription drug abuse continues to be the fastest rising drug abuse in our country. Easy to get for both adults and teens and found in almost every home. And it is being abused more and more everyday. This article shows a study that shows teens/adults from age 15-27 is the biggest population driving this phenomenon. Protect your medications and pay attention to how many you have and where they are!

As Suicide Prevention Awareness Week Comes to a Close, Bring Someone Out of the Darkness

Short and simple video that has nothing to do with Suicide Prevention Awareness, just a great invention that is helping people enjoy a simple luxury: light in their house. But wait....does this have meaning to Suicide Prevention Awareness Week? I think so. I think we can all do something simple to provide light in people's life. I think we can seek people out who live in darkness and help them. And I don't think it takes a special person or a genius mind, I think it just takes a small amount of time to find someone who is in a dark place and try to help them see the light. We can all help be a part of the solution. Have a great weekend!

This Week is National Suicide Prevention Week

 

       This week is National Suicide Prevention Week in our country. Our recent local data on the Iowa Youth Survey shows that we have anywhere from 5-12% or our middle school students thinking about suicide, making a plan to commit suicide, or even attempting suicide. At the high school, those numbers rise to near 19% in some cases. That means 1 in 5 of our high school age students have had suicidal thoughts! If that is not scary enough, state and national averages are very similar. As a counselor, it is sad and downright scary to think that a handful of kids that walk into my classroom every class period could be contemplating suicide. This is a problem affecting our teens today. But it is not just affecting teens, it is affecting adults. Adults who have lost their job, going through family splits, and especially adults returning from active duty in combat. This is a great week for all of us to re-focus on each other and reach out to someone who is in need. People who are contemplating suicide typically do not reach out for help. They feel hopeless (Hopelessness is the #1 cause/symptom of suicidal ideation) so they will not seek help. We need to seek them. We need to help them. We need to give them hope. Only then can we start lowering those scary percentages listed earlier in this post. So please keep your eyes, ears, and hearts open this week and every week for those who need a lift. And please try to provide that lift or help them find the help they need. I have placed a link below with TONS of resources and information about suicide such as warning signs, support numbers and groups, and what the common person can do to help. Please click the link and educate yourself so that you can be part of the solution. Thank you!

Suicide prevention Week information and resources

----Lots of information on the website above, but I did want to copy/paste information from one part of the website showing you just how severe the problem is and why we need to work to prevent this from happening. See information below.

Scope of the problem

Suicide occurs when a person ends his or her life. It is the 10th leading cause of death among Americans. But suicide deaths are only part of the problem.  Suicide attempts impact a larger population—more individuals survive suicide attempts than die. And they are often seriously injured and in need of medical care.

Suicide Deaths in the United States

• There are far more suicides each year than homicides. In fact, in 2009, the number of suicides was  about twice that of homicides.
• More than  36,000 people kill themselves each year.

Suicide Attempts in the United States

• There are an estimated 12 attempted suicides for every one suicide death.
• More than 374,500 people with self-inflicted injuries are treated in emergency rooms each year.
• More than 163,000 people are hospitalized each year due to self-inflicted injury.

Age Group Differences

• Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 25- to 34-year olds and the third leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year olds.
• Suicide among 45- to 54-year-olds is a growing problem; the rate of suicide is higher in this age group than in any other.
• Although older adults engage in suicide attempts less than those in other age groups, they have a higher rate of death by suicide.  Over the age of 65, there is one estimated suicide for every 4 attempted suicides compared to 1 suicide for every 100-200 attempts among youth and young adults ages 15-24.

Gender Disparities

• Men die by suicide four times as often as women and represent 78.8% of all U.S. suicides.
• Women attempt suicide two to three times as often as men.
• Suicide rates for males are highest among those aged 75 and older.
• Suicide rates for females are highest among those aged 45-54.
• Firearms are the most commonly used method of suicide among males.
• Poisoning is the most common method of suicide for females.

Racial and Ethnic Disparities

• The highest suicide rates are among American Indian/Alaskan Natives and Non-Hispanic Whites.
• Asian/Pacific Islanders have the lowest suicide rates among males while Non-Hispanic Blacks have the lowest suicide rate among females.

Recent Suicide in NW Iowa Called a "Bullycide"

  If you have been following the news today and yesterday, or even following your social network feed, you likely have come across the story of Kenneth Weishuhn, a 14-year old boy at South O'Brien High School that committed suicide over the weekend. This was after relentless harassment, attacks, and cyber and phone threats over the past two week after the teen came out as gay. Family and friends claim "bullying" led him to commit suicide, leading this incident to be called a "bullycide" (suicide after being bullied repeatedly). Sadly, this event shows the terrible effects that bullying, harassment, and cyberbullying can play. Bullying has been around forever, but people my age and older could get away from bullying be simply going home after school each day. In Kenneth's case, like many students today, he went home and got phone calls, texts, and even found Facebook posts and group pages directed at him and harassing him. If teens want to truly live in today's world, they have very few options to avoid cyberbullying and bullying could be a 24/7 event. I have worked with a student before who was getting mean and threatening text messages at 4 a.m. in the morning on a weekday! But with all the talk about bullying in this case, I do want to remind people that suicide is never the answer. The choice to choose suicide is a selfish act that harms just as many loved ones as the bullying that may have started it all. Bottom line in a case like this is that many students made horrible decisions to humiliate and harm another student and that student felt he had no other choice but the ultimate worst choice: suicide. Hopefully the good that can come from this is for everyone to learn what they could have done instead. Realize that words can hurt immensely. Realize that supports are out there for people who are suffering. And realize that we all have to be alert for both people who are harming others AND people who are showing signs that they are depressed, angry, or hopeless. Kenneth's life can not be brought back, but the lessons from this event could help save someone else's life.

To learn more about this story, click on a few of these links. The Sioux City Journal article is really good and really helped me understand all the parts of the situation.

Channel 13's short article plus video.

Sioux City Journal article...really good explanation of the school's role, family's role, and the details of what could have been done and what was done.