Last Updated on: 21st February 2014, 03:40 pm
Raaaar! That’s what this news story made me do when I saw it on the 6:00 news.
Apparently, suicide is the leading cause of death in people ages 10-24. 10? good lord! That’s not the part that makes me go raaar. This is. The school system has decided that they need to educate all the kids in how to look for signs of suicidal thought in their friends so *they* can catch it before it’s too late. Then they had this little kid on the news saying, “I never knew the signs, but now I know, so now I can watch.”
Are you starting to feel your head spin slowly? For me, it was a gradual bubbling of rage. It started off as sort of perplexing, then slightly disturbing, then I felt like I was going to explode. Why are we making children watch for signs of this in other children? Isn’t that a little too much responsibility to put on the poor kids? Isn’t it the job of Little Johnny’s parents to notice when Little Johnny is falling off the rails? I know that a person is more likely to tell their friends these things than their parents, but at 10, I don’t think it’s right or fair to be having kids watching out to see if their friends might try and jump off a bridge. It’s hard enough for adults to see the signs, and the way kids blame themselves for stuff that isn’t even their fault, I think it’s pretty shitty to put this burden on their shoulders. Am I wrong to feel upset that this is being expected of kids as young as 10? Do I not give them enough credit? Does this seem right to anyone?
