Canada in a Youth Suicide Crisis Situation
The idea of youth committing suicide mystifies our societal logic. We do not understand the reasons why youth -normally associated with energy, determination and possibilities- turn to such a final act as a solution. Suicide eventually enters all of our lives, either directly or indirectly. However, the situation becomes more cruel and unfair when a youth commits suicide. We can not help but think of the opportunities and potential lost so swiftly for one so young. Although adolescent suicide is a current crisis in today’s Canadian society, youth for all of history and in all cultures have resorted to this ultimate form of self-destruction. Clearly we have and always have had, a teenage dilemma needing desperate attention. Canada is currently in a youth suicide crisis situation. Our suicide rates are above that of the United States as well as other auspicious countries. For example, in young men aged fifteen to nineteen, the rate of suicide “is 60 percent higher than in the United States.”1 UNICEF has declared that adolescent suicide is Canada’s major tragedy. Our youth are unable to cope and unable to successfully find the kind of help they need to help themselves. The results are tragic and unnecessary.
Youth take their own lives for a plethora of reasons, although none of these reasons should actually constitute an attempt at suicide. What is it then, that brings a teen to commit suicide? What factors lead to suicidal tendencies on the part of the adolescent? The enigma of youth suicide is multidimensional. As we will discover herein, the major theories on youth suicide can be categorized into three fundamental causes. Adolescent suicide is the result of one, or a...
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4. Ibid., 496.
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According to Fowler, Crosby, Parks, and Ivey (2013), suicide and nonfatal suicidal ideations are significant public health concerns for adolescents and young adults. While the onset of suicidal behaviors is observed as young as six years of age, rates of death and nonfatal injury resulting from suicidal behavior are moderately low until 15 years of age (Fowler et al., 2013). According to Fowler et al (2013), the most current available statistics in the United States (U. S.) reported suicide as the third leading cause of death among youth aged 10-14 and 15-19 years, and it was the second leading cause of death among persons aged 20-24 years.
There are many things which can drive a teen to commit suicide some of them are as simple as making fun of the “fat” kid in class; others can come from the mental images from witnessing a shooting. There are four major issues which contribute to teen suicide such as depression, family problems, risk factors, and teens reactions to there climate. Depression, unfortunately, is one of the biggest factors of today’s teenage suicide problems and some of the reasons for it are from the student’s own peers, “being depressed is triggered by loss or rejection (Joan 59).” Depression can be f...
Chandler, Michael. "Self & Cultural Continuity as a hedge against youth suicide." university of british columbia, 7 february (2012).presentation.
In a study released by Brown University, their psychology department shed some light on common myths and facts surrounded suicide. These m...
In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention established that 6.3% of high school students have attempted suicide in the preceding year. Given the lethal consequences of suicide attempts, determining risk factors among adolescents becomes especially important. Generally speaking, psychiatric disorders and substantial psychosocial impairments are known to be associated with suicide attempts. However, previous research attempting to identify specific risk factors in adolescents is somewhat ambiguous. Nonetheless, one thing is consistent. When measuring the risk of an adolescent committing suicide, information must come from a variety of sources and perspectives. These sources may include but are not limited to a clinical interview with the adolescent, information provided by the parent or guardian, standardized assessments and previous psychiatric documents from the individual.
A 17 year old boy, Douglas Stewart, came home from school to find his mother lying on the sofa with a strained back. Being concerned for her he rubbed her back briefly then put on some easy listening music. Douglas then proceeded downstairs to his bedroom. Two of his friends came to the door. His mother waited to see if he would return to answer it; minutes later she answered and then yelled for him to come up. When he did not come, she went downstairs to get him. That is when she found him strangled and her son’s body dangling from the ceiling. This is a senseless tragic sight for a mother to endure. The mortality rate from suicide in 1996 showed 9.5 per 100,000 for 15-19 year olds. This also shows boys are four times more likely to commit suicide then girls. However, girls are twice as likely to attempt suicide. (American 1996) It is imperative to reverse this trend and in doing so we need to understand the characteristics, behaviors and events associated with youth suicide.
Michaelson, Peter. “A Hidden Reason for Suicidal Thoughts”(2013). Why We Suffer. n.pag. Web. 2 Apr. 2014
Background of issue: Canada’s Indigenous population, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people, comprises 4.3% of the general population. Suicide among Indigenous youth in Canada is a nationwide crisis that has been brought to public attention not only by recent media coverage, but also declarations from individual communities, and is apparent in national statistics dating back more than a decade. (Health Canada, 2002, p.111) Despite this, Indigenous communities have and continue to display resilience as shown through various community-led suicide prevention initiatives.
Durkheim, E. (1951). Suicide: A Study in Sociology. (J. A. Spaulding, & G. Simpson, Trans.)
Dokoupil, Tony. A. The "Suicide Epidemic" Newsweek Global 161.19 (2013): 1 Business Source Premier. EBSCO. Web.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15 to 24 year olds, and the sixth leading cause for 5 to 14 year olds. Suicide accounts for twelve percent of the mortality in the adolescent and young adult group. Young males are more common than young woman suicides. These are only children who followed through with the suicide. For every successful suicide there are fifty to one hundred adolescent suicide attempts. In other words, more than five percent of all teenagers tried to commit suicide, and the number is still rising. It is scary to think that four percent of high school students have made a suicide attempt within the previous twelve months. In a small safe town like Avon, in the Avon High School where you and I practically live, you can see the faces of 22 students that have tried to commit suicide. That is enough to fill a classroom.
Now the eighth-leading cause of death overall in the U.S. and the third-leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years, suicide has become the subject of much recent focus. U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, for instance, recently announced his Call to Action to Prevent Suicide, 1999, an initiative intended to increase public awareness, promote intervention strategies, and enhance research. The media, too, has been paying very close attention to the subject of suicide, writing articles and books and running news stories. Suicide among our nation’s youth, a population very vulnerable to self-destructive emotions, has perhaps received the most discussion of late. Maybe this is because teenage suicide seems the most tragic—lives lost before they’ve even started. Yet, while all of this recent focus is good, it’s only the beginning. We cannot continue to lose so many lives unnecessarily.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Print. The. Suicide and Suicidal Behaviors. Suicide : Medline Plus.
Suicide is the act of a human being purposely causing his or her own death. Many teenagers commit suicide and there are many reasons why. Most teenagers may think suicide is an easy way out and a way of trying to break away from their feelings because they can’t handle the pain that they are dealt with. There are many mixed feelings of these teens, such as depression, and there are many teenagers that committed suicide that could have been prevented. Teenage suicide is a growing event taking part in today’s society and teenagers take their own life because of the many pressures, stresses, bullying, and many other things they are faced with.
''Youth failure suicide'' is the suicide case among the age group of 10-19 (The Hong Kong Council of Social Service, 2014). It is caused by the extreme sensation of failing in achievement and interpersonal relationship aspects (Peck & Dolch 2000). There are three main reasons leading to youth failure suicide, including teenagers having low self-esteem, having the feelings of failure, and suffering from disturbances in family structure. First of all, teenagers with low self-esteem tend to commit suicide while facing the adversity (Peck & Dolch 2000). According to David Lester (1988), teenagers with poor self-image living with competitions in peer group may perform blatant suicidal acts (Berman, Jobes & Silverman 2006). Second, high expectation from society combining with the poor academic performance lead to the youngsters' feeling of guilt at failure (Tse & Bag...