Socio-economic Factors that Cause Teenage Suicide

Teenage suicide is the number two cause of death for teens today. While the questions of why can never be answered for certain there are many risk factors that can go into what causes a teen to take their own life. I believe the main reasons tend to be family problems, bullying, and depression among other reasons. When a teen sees no way out of the situation they are in, except for death, important and life saving measures can and should be made. Although we can never be sure for certain, in this paper I want to get to the bottom of what the social economic factors that lead teens to take their own lives are.

I’m interested in finding out what causes teenagers to take their own lives because I believe that once we begin to understand that we can take proactive steps into stopping them. While researching I found out that “Suicide attempts by gay teens, and even straight kids, are more common in politically conservative areas where schools don't have programs supporting gay rights”. This helped answer my research question because it gave me a deeper understanding into how tense political climates & differences can also have an effect on teens taking their own lives. As well as political differences bullying in school environments is very high and is one of the biggest reasons teens have depression, which later leads them to eventually ending their own life. If we fix these two problems in our social, economic and political hemispheres I believe there could be a serious change in the level of suicide rates.

While reading through the research I noticed how many statistics there were to support the facts for example something I found out was that “Roughly 20 per cent of gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had made an attempt to kill themselves, versus 4 per cent of straight kids (Tanner E8)”. These help to strengthen my arguments and gives evidence to back them up. Something interesting I learnt through this source is that straight teens compared to LGBTQ+ teens straight teens have a significantly less rate of death by suicide because they don’t have to deal with bullting and discrimination based on sexual orientation. The source I used also stated many political statistics such as “suicide amongst teens is more common in politically conservative areas where schools don't have programs supporting gay rights”. This specific research paper was very informational because it gave actual real life examples of students who had tried to take their own life, and how their recovering from it with therapy.

The library orientation was very helpful in setting me up to write this research paper. As well as the reference libraries which I gained a lot of knowledge and understanding from. Finding information using keywords and synonyms was very beneficial in time management and helped me find my sources. There was plenty of information on my research question so I think it was relatively simple to answer it.

Knowing what provoked someone to commit suicide is important but it’s even more meaningful and helpful to know the signs that someone is going to or thinking about taking their own life. I chose this as my next topic because knowing the main signs that someone may be having suicidal thoughts or even being depressed could possibly save their lives and change their lives. There are several tips I found in my research and they all helped answer my question, how to help someone before they try to commit suicide?

Knowing that you're not responsible for preventing someone from taking his or her own life, but your intervention may help the person see that other options are available to stay safe and get treatment is very important when dealing with family or friends who may be suicidal. The main thing I learned was not to take it as a joke and not to brush it off as a “phase” especially if it’s your own child going through this. Making them feel like what they’re going through isn’t important or making them believe they’re insignificant can be very damaging and might push them off the edge. So it’s best to be gentle, understanding and caring. It’s very helpful to watch for any unusual changes in their usual daily routine. I read in my research that “Causes for concern range from changes in sleeping and eating patterns to increasing isolation from family and friends, giving away of personal items and depression”. If you’re related to someone who you think might be displaying any of these changes alert any trusted adult and let them know of what you think might be going on. The presence of warning signs does not mean that the person is indeed suicidal. The only way to know for sure is to ask them.

Asking an individual and having them talk about how they feel significantly lessens their sentiments of disconnection and misery, which thusly enormously decreases the impending danger of suicide. A few issues may never be totally settled by talking or directing, yet a decent advisor ought to have the option to enable an individual to manage those issues helpfully, and encourage them better adapting aptitudes/better strategies for managing issues later on. Try not to attempt to work the individual out of their emotions or express stun. Recollect, despite the fact that somebody who's self-destructive isn't thinking sensibly, the feelings are genuine. Not regarding how the individual feels can close down communication. If you can, ensure the individual doesn't have things around that could be utilized for suicide, for example, blades, razors, weapons or medications. On the off chance that the individual takes a medicine that could be utilized for overdose, urge the person in question to have somebody defend it and give it as endorsed. Simply being there for somebody in their desperate hour gives them that somebody does mind, and now and again that can have an effect. These are largely stunning tips I got from my examination and I really accept they can work!

A study found that right around 2012, there was an unexpected increment in adolescents' side effects real suicide rates and that happened to be the time that cell phones got mainstream. Advanced mobile phones have been a supporting factor in adolescent suicide since it gives teenagers access to the internet which 9/10 isn't a protected spot because of harassing and predators. This article helped me realize how serious of an impact smartphones can have when dealing with suicidal teens because of how attached this generation has been to them. If you have a child who might be dealing with these problems make sure to give them a limited amount of access to social media and the internet in general. In her research paper Navarro says “My research found that, regardless of content, regardless of what teens are looking at, whether it's fluffy cat videos or whether it's content that is more difficult, more screen time goes hand-in-hand with a higher incidence of depression”. This should be kept in mind when dealing with someone whose having suicidal thoughts because depression is the highest cause of teen suicide. Not only teens have time management issues with phones, even adults suffer from overuse of smartphones so it’s best if we all limit ourselves.

In conclusion suicide rates, they’re causes and ways we can try to prevent them should be taken very seriously and we should take more proactive steps to lower rates. Doing this research paper has helped improve my writing knowledge and hopefully it helped educate the readers more about this topic. If you’re reading this then you should get more involved in suicide prevention programs, and try to make some sort of difference. Children are taking their lives every day and this should not be normalized. If we all work together and do something I believe we can lower these suicide rates.