zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jan 18, 2016 8:32:16 GMT -5
I wonder about that or if it's that combined with kids who aren't taught to be a little less sensitive and that the world can be a tough place. Not giving kids the skills to cope because adults always intervene to fix every problem instead of letting kids figure it out hurts more than it helps.
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bean29
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Post by bean29 on Jan 18, 2016 9:36:49 GMT -5
MPL, my heart hurts for your son, I hope he weathers through this, I know when you lose someone close to you to suicide it is very difficult to understand. The Catholic church used to say that if you committed suicide, you couldn't get into heaven, but they now say that that person will go to heaven, and that they were not in a state of mind where they were conscious that the pain they are in may be temporary, things will improve, or the effect their death may have on their loved ones and friends. I went to look for something that explained it better, and found this:
www.catholicdigest.com/articles/faith/knowledge/2007/04-01/do-people-who-commit-suicide-go-to-hell
In recent years, a cousin lost her husband to suicide, and each of my kids lost at least one friend in HS to suicide. Both the HS kids were having relationship issues, one committed suicide while on Facetime with her boyfriend who she was fighting with. DD says she did not intend to kill herself that it was an accident.
DS's friend broke up with his GF. His parents were not home, but he had a friend in the house with him when he committed suicide. DS had been a friend in grade school and middle school but not so much in HS. This kid has a champion powerlifter and may well have been on steroids. He had signed his donor card, so DS and many of his HS friends went to the hospital and kept vigil until they took him off life support.
There were spontaneous gatherings (vigil) for both kids. One was at the HS and the other on the lakefront (our city is on Lake Michigan). The girl had had emotional problems and had been in Drug rehab the prior year. They did point the finger at her group of friends and claim she was bullied. There were two girls who were accused, one withdrew from school and the other I think graduated early. I felt they were themselves bullied - they were in fact bullied on social media both by teens and adults. I went to both vigils and the whole family went to the funeral for the boy that had been DS's friend.
When the kids are HS age, many of them will go together. I guess your kids reaction to a funeral depends on their prior experience. My in-laws babysat for my kids when they were little and DD says they went to many funerals - DD views it as part of her culture, and identifies differences between a Hispanic funeral and a "white" one. The funeral we attended as a family I saw many kids there as a group of friends, and many with their parents.
The smallish town some of my family is from has a memory walk to raise funds for suicide awareness every year. I think the funds are used for mental health counseling. They sell T-shirts and probably collect pledges - but there are always pics posted of many family members attending the walk. My cousin that lost her husband to suicide lives in CHI, but she is always there with many of her family members and many of my cousins and one Aunt and Uncle. My Uncle's first wife committed suicide - not sure if he was still married to her when she did, but she was the Mother of his kids, so he is always there - makes me think what a really good person he is.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jan 18, 2016 9:56:20 GMT -5
I'm old enough to know they although I have thoughts of it as an answer to the ache stopping, I also know that it won't last forever, this ache, I hope anyway. So when I have thoughts of it, I can realize it will pass. Young people may not realize this given their lack of maturity and experience.
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cronewitch
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Post by cronewitch on Jan 18, 2016 9:56:58 GMT -5
I think life is harder for teens now. I went to high school in the 60s and we didn't have birth control pills and abortion was illegal so I don't think most girls were sexually active in high school. A major thing was kids didn't have to stay in school so if a kid was a misfit they dropped out. I knew some boys at 16 who went to work in a gas station now we make them stay in school. Girls who didn't fit in often married young and some boys joined the service to get out of town. Teen pregnancy isn't all as bad as people think, mom and her mom each had a first baby at 19 married at 18 it was common. My brother married his wife when she turned 17 and she was 19 when her first was born. My ISO was married at 16 and had her first at 17. Now we stress the kids out they want out of school but are forced to stay in even if bullied. They are treated like they need to make career decisions at 16 for a lifetime and go to college even if they aren't college material and need to make choices and don't see any way out. Information age means nobody will rent to them at 18 without two years work history and good credit or cosigners and a criminal history means you might never get a job or apartment or looks that way to them.
Some teens have horrid parents, abusive, not enough food or money. In my day they could leave join the army at 16 and get jobs without work permits from schools.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jan 18, 2016 9:59:09 GMT -5
Even the military has raised their standards now.
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Sam_2.0
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Post by Sam_2.0 on Jan 18, 2016 17:12:20 GMT -5
I'm old enough to know they although I have thoughts of it as an answer to the ache stopping, I also know that it won't last forever, this ache, I hope anyway. So when I have thoughts of it, I can realize it will pass. Young people may not realize this given their lack of maturity and experience. There's a lot to this. Teens are impulsive as it is, having not yet developed the ability to really think things through all the way. Add in depression and it's a terrible mix.
I think it's normal for us to notice things that are happening around us, and related to our particular circumstances. For awhile there it seemed every person I knew had a friend or family member dealing with a stillbirth or infant loss through SIDS. Not really, but that's where we were & the support groups that we tended towards. Your kids are in HS, so common problems amongst HS kids are front & center for you.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2016 22:20:38 GMT -5
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saveinla
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Post by saveinla on Jan 19, 2016 22:28:29 GMT -5
My son's friend was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 19 (after he started college as a freshman) and thought that was the end of his life and jumped in front of a train last January - 6 to 8 months after his diagnosis. I wish he had talked to some people who had been diagnosed and treated successfully
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Jan 20, 2016 7:13:23 GMT -5
A lot of life's problems come down to our expectations. We think that the world should be a certain way. We think we should have what we want when we want it. We think that there shouldn't be struggles in life and that everything should be easy. We have coddled our kids to the point of them having very little ability to cope with the realities and disappointments in life. We have told people that you are "no good" if you have a "Mcjob" and have denigrated people of limited or modest means who probably are some of the hardest working people but yet don't have the material goods of success. We haven't taught kids to value those things. That all work is noble and worthy be it sweeping floors or doing brain surgery. We have taught them that there is a pecking order to life and if you aren't top of the heap, then you are nothing. And, when I say "we" , i don't mean all of us in particular, I mean that as more of a collective message of society. Easy money is celebrated. Kardashians are filthy rich and famous for being famous. Get rich quick is celebrated whereas someone working day by day at the daily grind, not so much. So, of course most of us cannot achieve those levels of worldly success. When i was growing up, there wasn't the pressure to be rich and famous. Most of us just expected to go to school, some of us went to college and most of us just expected to live a modest life in a modest town with friends and family and have a happy life. There wasn't the pressure that is put on kids today. Parents were not living their lives vicariously through their kids' successes. We have gone off the rails in a lot of ways.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jan 20, 2016 7:18:25 GMT -5
A lot of life's problems come down to our expectations. We think that the world should be a certain way. We think we should have what we want when we want it. We think that there shouldn't be struggles in life and that everything should be easy. We have coddled our kids to the point of them having very little ability to cope with the realities and disappointments in life. We have told people that you are "no good" if you have a "Mcjob" and have denigrated people of limited or modest means who probably are some of the hardest working people but yet don't have the material goods of success. We haven't taught kids to value those things. That all work is noble and worthy be it sweeping floors or doing brain surgery. We have taught them that there is a pecking order to life and if you aren't top of the heap, then you are nothing. And, when I say "we" , i don't mean all of us in particular, I mean that as more of a collective message of society. Easy money is celebrated. Kardashians are filthy rich and famous for being famous. Get rich quick is celebrated whereas someone working day by day at the daily grind, not so much. So, of course most of us cannot achieve those levels of worldly success. When i was growing up, there wasn't the pressure to be rich and famous. Most of us just expected to go to school, some of us went to college and most of us just expected to live a modest life in a modest town with friends and family and have a happy life. There wasn't the pressure that is put on kids today. Parents were not living their lives vicariously through their kids' successes. We have gone off the rails in a lot of ways. I can't like this post enough. Even I see my guilt in this.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2016 8:40:25 GMT -5
A lot of life's problems come down to our expectations. We think that the world should be a certain way. We think we should have what we want when we want it. We think that there shouldn't be struggles in life and that everything should be easy. We have coddled our kids to the point of them having very little ability to cope with the realities and disappointments in life. We have told people that you are "no good" if you have a "Mcjob" and have denigrated people of limited or modest means who probably are some of the hardest working people but yet don't have the material goods of success. We haven't taught kids to value those things. That all work is noble and worthy be it sweeping floors or doing brain surgery. We have taught them that there is a pecking order to life and if you aren't top of the heap, then you are nothing. And, when I say "we" , i don't mean all of us in particular, I mean that as more of a collective message of society. Easy money is celebrated. Kardashians are filthy rich and famous for being famous. Get rich quick is celebrated whereas someone working day by day at the daily grind, not so much. So, of course most of us cannot achieve those levels of worldly success. When i was growing up, there wasn't the pressure to be rich and famous. Most of us just expected to go to school, some of us went to college and most of us just expected to live a modest life in a modest town with friends and family and have a happy life. There wasn't the pressure that is put on kids today. Parents were not living their lives vicariously through their kids' successes. We have gone off the rails in a lot of ways. I can't like this post enough. Even I see my guilt in this. Yeah. I'm very guilty of it with older son and I think it's backfiring on me big time.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jan 20, 2016 9:07:52 GMT -5
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2016 15:27:21 GMT -5
So, my son is now on the radar of social services. He's been getting in trouble increasingly at school with his annoying, obnoxious behavior. School and myself have both been upping the punishment and severity, but now in his anger when he gets in trouble he's started saying things like he wishes he was dead which has of course got all kinds of attention. It's happening Every. Single. Day. and I just don't know what to do anymore. This last month has been exhausting. They called again today. Gymnastics unit in phy-ed (guaranteed issue). Teacher let him sit out, but he was causing problems distracting people or something...not sure and the teacher was going to write him a Map ticket (minor), but because it's Sam, it's now an instant escalation to office referral. He was irate and got another day of in-school suspension. The principal says she's so worried about him because he seems convinced everyone hates him. I just don't get it. He acts in a way that everyone doesn't like, gets bad reaction and continues to do that. They're giving me the paperwork to have a mental health worker come in and work with him during the day. I just don't know what to do with him anymore.
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on Feb 16, 2016 15:37:10 GMT -5
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Feb 16, 2016 15:42:15 GMT -5
I don't know. Maybe it is just about awareness. I only knew of one teen pregnancy when I was in school too and now it seems like it's common. It just seems hard to hide a suicide, especially when they have siblings. Can't comment on teen suicide rates, but my understanding is teen pregnancy rates have been dropping for some time.
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Feb 16, 2016 15:51:41 GMT -5
Can you narrow down when Sam's issues started getting worse? Maybe something happened at school or somewhere?
If it's any comfort, DN#6 is regressing too. She'll be 16 soon.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2016 16:05:11 GMT -5
No, nothing really. But, the last 6 weeks he's gotten in trouble more than the entire year prior. Nothing happened that I know of.
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Feb 16, 2016 16:07:37 GMT -5
Ok, it was a thought.
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milee
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Post by milee on Feb 16, 2016 16:12:55 GMT -5
I'm so sorry about your son.
You have such a good relationship with his dad - maybe time to work together on this. What does his dad think is going on?
I forgot - are there any other school options? Not that I'm suggesting switching schools without understanding what's going on, just asking in case the school or the kids at school are part of it.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 16, 2016 16:15:06 GMT -5
I'm sorry MPL. Can you get any help from his dad?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2016 16:15:08 GMT -5
I'm so sorry about your son.
You have such a good relationship with his dad - maybe time to work together on this. What does his dad think is going on?
I forgot - are there any other school options? Not that I'm suggesting switching schools without understanding what's going on, just asking in case the school or the kids at school are part of it. There are a couple other options, but he's been at this school for 10 years and there is only 4 months left before he has to go somewhere else (it only goes up to 8th grade).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2016 16:19:15 GMT -5
His Dad is kind of feeling the same way I am...lost. We both have responded about the same way, just telling him to "knock the behavior off and the kids would like him more", but now I'm thinking he truly can't control it 100%. He's always very remorseful and self-loathing after he's calmed down which can sometimes take a couple of hours.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2016 16:28:09 GMT -5
When I was a senior in high school in the late 80's, a popular tenth grader that I knew, but not very well, committed suicide. After school the day she did it, she was hugging everybody and telling them bye, you won't see me again. It seemed odd, but I guess nobody really thought about what she might mean because she didn't seem sad or anything. When school started the next morning, the word started spreading and I hoped it was just a crazy lie., but it wasn't. Our teachers and administrators had their hands full that day dealing with hundreds of upset students that were in no state of mind to focus on schoolwork that day.
When my son was 12yo, his school called me because one of his teachers had found a note he'd written about wanting to kill himself. The following months were the worst thing I've ever been through, because the note was not a joke. Between getting him the help he needed and constantly jumping up and down at his school because as it turned out, some of his teachers knew he was being severely bullied and did nothing about it, it was awful. A decade later, it still pisses me off that the people that were suppose to help and protect him turned a blind eye when as one teacher told me "Ms. Pink, those boys torture him EVERY day". Really, you tell me that now, AFTER my son decided that the only way to stop getting picked on and beat up was to kill himself and I started raising hell about it?
it's not the only reason for teen suicide, but the bullying problem is very real. I'm grown and I can't imagine how I'd feel about myself if I went through some of the things my son went through. Like getting beat up in the bathroom by 3 boys and telling the teacher in tears what happened, only to be told to go in the classroom and sit down. I'm very grateful that the school called me about the note, that I had the resources to get my son the help he needed, and managers at work that graciously worked with me so I didn't have to worry about losing my job while I did what I needed to do to try to keep my child alive and I'm grateful I had the courage to stand up to the administrations at his school and make it clear that I expected everyone to do their jobs so that he would not be "tortured" any more when he returned to school.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 16, 2016 16:30:17 GMT -5
His Dad is kind of feeling the same way I am...lost. We both have responded about the same way, just telling him to "knock the behavior off and the kids would like him more", but now I'm thinking he truly can't control it 100%. He's always very remorseful and self-loathing after he's calmed down which can sometimes take a couple of hours. See a doctor maybe?
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 16, 2016 16:31:54 GMT -5
When I was a senior in high school in the late 80's, a popular tenth grader that I knew, but not very well, committed suicide. After school the day she did it, she was hugging everybody and telling them bye, you won't see me again. It seemed odd, but I guess nobody really thought about what she might mean because she didn't seem sad or anything. When school started the next morning, the word started spreading and I hoped it was just a crazy lie., but it wasn't. Our teachers and administrators had their hands full that day dealing with hundreds of upset students that were in no state of mind to focus on schoolwork that day. When my son was 12yo, his school called me because one of his teachers had found a note he'd written about wanting to kill himself. The following months were the worst thing I've ever been through, because the note was not a joke. Between getting him the help he needed and constantly jumping up and down at his school because as it turned out, some of his teachers knew he was being severely bullied and did nothing about it, it was awful. A decade later, it still pisses me off that the people that were suppose to help and protect him turned a blind eye when as one teacher told me "Ms. Pink, those boys torture him EVERY day". Really, you tell me that now, AFTER my son decided that the only way to stop getting picked on and beat up was to kill himself and I started raising hell about it? it's not the only reason for teen suicide, but the bullying problem is very real. I'm grown and I can't imagine how I'd feel about myself if I went through some of the things my son went through. Like getting beat up in the bathroom by 3 boys and telling the teacher in tears what happened, only to be told to go in the classroom and sit down. I'm very grateful that the school called me about the note, that I had the resources to get my son the help he needed, and managers at work that graciously worked with me so I didn't have to worry about losing my job while I did what I needed to do to try to keep my child alive and I'm grateful I had the courage to stand up to the administrations at his school and make it clear that I expected everyone to do their jobs so that he would not be "tortured" any more when he returned to school. If I responded as angry as I am at the people who did nothing, I'd be banned forever.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2016 16:33:31 GMT -5
He is EXTREMELY smart but has very poor self esteem, but you wouldn't know to talk to him. You'd think he was just an obnoxious kid, until I pick him up from scouts and he's going on an on about how they all hate him, or from hunter safety and is upset because the teacher asked him if he had ADD. Another teacher asked him the same thing and if he was a narcissist. He remembers this stuff FOREVER. He is not medicated or diagnosed with anything. He definitely does not have ADD. He can lay there on a couch and read for hours on end or focus on a game or puzzle for long stretches.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Feb 16, 2016 16:36:39 GMT -5
Those teachers should have never said anything like that to him. What the hell kind of teachers are they?
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on Feb 16, 2016 16:37:03 GMT -5
I'm so sorry about your son.
You have such a good relationship with his dad - maybe time to work together on this. What does his dad think is going on?
I forgot - are there any other school options? Not that I'm suggesting switching schools without understanding what's going on, just asking in case the school or the kids at school are part of it. There are a couple other options, but he's been at this school for 10 years and there is only 4 months left before he has to go somewhere else (it only goes up to 8th grade). He headed back from the holiday break to the forced final few months of a ten year experience. He is looking at the end of childhood and realizing on some level he will soon have to deal with the next phase of his life. And he is showing behavior issues. Hmmm.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2016 16:39:20 GMT -5
There are a couple other options, but he's been at this school for 10 years and there is only 4 months left before he has to go somewhere else (it only goes up to 8th grade). He headed back from the holiday break to the forced final few months of a ten year experience. He is looking at the end of childhood and realizing on some level he will soon have to deal with the next phase of his life. And he is showing behavior issues. Hmmm. I do think he's worried about high school. The plan was to send him to the private school in town, but at the rate he's going he won't get in, plus I'm not sure I want to send him somewhere that can just kick him out.
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whoami
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Post by whoami on Feb 16, 2016 16:41:28 GMT -5
He definitely does not have ADD. He can lay there on a couch and read for hours on end or focus on a game or puzzle for long stretches. Actually, hyperfocus can be a symptom of ADD/ADHD. Mine is most definitely ADHD (and you can tell when the meds kick in) yet he has always been able to sit and stare at a video game on the computer for hours and hours on end (meds or not) to the exclusion of everything else. He should be evaluated.
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