Q: My daughter learned one of her friends was planning to kill herself. She made my daughter promise not to tell anyone. My daughter is trying to be true to her promise, but suicide is a heavy responsibility. She broke down and told me about it last night. Both my husband and I think that we should talk to the parents of the girl considering suicide but my daughter is horrified.
The girl would know that my daughter had betrayed her and my daughter would lose all of her credibility. What do you think we should do?
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A: You have both legal and moral responsibilities to let these parents know that their daughter may be in serious psychological difficulty.
If your daughter’s friend committed suicide and neither you nor your daughter had forewarned her family, the consequences for all of you could be overwhelming.
Make sure that you have phone numbers and other contact information for your local mental health clinic to share with the family. They need to get their daughter into treatment as soon as possible.
Every year, about 200 adolescents kill themselves in Canada.
Although more girls than boys threaten to commit suicide, more boys than girls follow through and do it. Two to three times as many boys as girls committed suicide.
People who study suicide in adolescents have noted that they are seeing some changes in the numbers in the past four or five years, with the numbers going down for young boys and up for young girls.
No one has clearly identified what is going on but I have no doubt that social media is an important factor here. Kids are texting or emailing often devastating messages to each other and more girls than boys appear to be caught in this denigrating process.
We need to get more of these troubled youth into treatment and improve the treatment being offered to those who are working to help themselves.
We need more counsellors to work with young people to prevent suicide and more research to better understand how we can help those who are turning to their mental health support system for help.
This is a challenge for everyone involved.
