These days, you hear a lot of news about teens, and even kids committing suicide. There was even a story recently about a 12-year-old girl who live streamed her suicide. Suffice to say, it’s about time that parents try to learn more about suicide, and talk about it with their kids.
Talking about depression can help save a life
For the most part, mental illness, such as depression, is just one of the many contributing factors to suicide. Just like other diseases, such as heart disease, or cancer, depression can kill, and it should be treated as an illness, and not simply as a minor problem that someone has.
Knowing the signs that someone might kill themselves, or even the signs of depression can help save a life.
This is why addressing depression as a main cause of suicide, and discussing it with your kids is very important. Be honest and upfront about depression, and don’t make it seem like it’s something that people can’t get out of. Everyone gets depressed at one point or another, and those who have a hard time dealing with their depression are the ones who are most at risk of committing suicide.
Be open with your kids and ask them how they feel about life, or if there have been moments when they feel depressed, sad, or lonely. Reassure them that their feelings are valid and normal, and that if there’s anything that you can do to help, whether it’s helping them talk to a psychiatrist, or simply having someone to talk to, you’ll gladly do it.
How can we talk about suicide with our kids?
On the other hand, if a loved one or a close family friend commits suicide, you should be honest and talk upfront when it comes to talking about it with your kids.
You should share only the facts that you’re comfortable sharing to your kids, and it’s best to share facts that they can understand at their young age. Once they’re older, you can start sharing more information with them so that they can better understand what happened.
The important thing is to be open, and not tell them lies. Most parents think that talking about suicide to their kids might influence their kids to commit suicide if they feel sad or depressed, but being open and being supportive of your kids as well as addressing their feelings is the key to helping them get through a problem.
Depression kills, in both children and adults, and as parents, it’s your responsibility to teach your kids about depression as well as help them during the times that they feel depressed.
Being open and creating a loving relationship in your family is very important as it also helps your children talk about suicide and depression to other kids their age, and potentially help save other people’s lives.
Sources: today.com, sptsusa.org
READ: 12-Year-old live streams her suicide; Video goes viral
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