Talking with kids about suicide

Yesterday, I did something I had hoped to avoid until at least my daughter's teen years: I talked with her about suicide.  It's nothing I planned on; I just knew that she'd have heard about our area's fourth teen suicide in six months, and I felt it better to address the situation with facts rather than to try to discern meaning from school rumors.

Broaching the subject, I asked Petunia if she'd heard about another teenager getting hit by a train (this is what she'd heard about in the past).  Her response was that yes, someone at school had said that another child had been hit while sitting on the tracks.  Her question: why would a kid sit on the tracks?  Couldn't he hear the train coming?

Yes, I told her, he could.  He sat there on purpose.

I would like to forget the look on her face as it dawned on her what I was saying, but I'm sure I never will forget that sweet face, flushed and full of awe, anger, sadness and confusion. 

Why?  She wanted to know.  So do I; click here for the post I wrote regarding teen suicide for the SVMB.

In the end, I didn't have to say much at all.  As her under-the-weather brother slept in his car seat, we talked in the car -- our usual place for deep discussions.  She told me that if she felt really sad or "out of hope" (her words), she'd talk to me or to her dad, of course.  She also looked me in the eye and promised me she'd never take her own life.  I didn't ask her to say that, but I'm glad she did.  I looked her in the eye and said that neither daddy nor I would either.  It's a pact, one that psychologists encourage us to make with our kids.  It wasn't hard to do with a nine year-old; I wonder how many parents of teens have heard and heeded that advice, too.

What a screwed-up world this is when Petunia doesn't know about the birds-and-the-bees yet but knows about suicide.  I'm just glad that she and I could talk meaningfully about this without hysterics or fear.  She ended our conversation by saying, "I would never do that to my mom and dad.  What are these kids thinking?"  In all of the despair I feel about this suicide cluster, I have to admit that I agree with her on that front; these kids aren't thinking about their families, or the train drivers, people whose lives are going to be taken, too, to some extent, by their actions.  It's too late for the four who've already passed, but what about the hundreds that surround us still?  How do we convince them that they have worth or that their families are worth sparing that kind of pain?  It breaks my heart that this is happening and that my daughter lost a little bit of innocence about the world yesterday.  It happens; they grow.  I just wish I could have sheltered her a little bit longer.