This year, Suicide Prevention Month – as well as Suicide Prevention Week and World Suicide Prevention Day – feels different than in years past. That’s because it’s taking place during a pandemic. With COVID-19 now being our new normal, many new things have become commonplace. Masks are as essential as our keys. Social distancing is expected. In many cities, virtual school is the rule rather than the exception. Most states
This year, many teens are starting the new school year from home. While some teens benefit from the flexibility of distance learning, nearly every student worries about the loss of in-person time with classmates, teachers, and friends. For teens who identify as LGBTQ, a semester of social distancing may mean being apart from the only LGBTQ people they know. Even when they live with supportive family members, spending time with
For over 20 years – since 1999 – the Substance Abuse and Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) organized and promoted National Recovery Month (Recovery Month) every September. The goal of Recovery Month is to spread awareness, reduce stigma, and educate individuals and families about the importance of mental health and substance use treatment and services. This goal has four core elements: Behavioral Health Awareness. Mental and behavioral health are an essential
This time last year, parents and teens were buying new school supplies and getting excited to go back to school. This year, though, the situation looks drastically different. Some school districts say they won’t open for in-person classes at all. Others are considering a hybrid schedule of virtual learning combined with limited face-to-face lessons. And other schools are still not sure what they’re going to do. Many parents are anxious
Grandparents have a unique role in a child’s life. Often serving as quasi-parents, grandmothers and grandfathers have the opportunity to shower their grandkids with love and attention while avoiding the typically difficult duties of parenting, such as discipline, changing diapers, mealtimes, and bedtime. In their exceptional roles, grandparents may see sides of their grandchildren that parents don’t see, or don’t see clearly. Sometimes a teen feels more comfortable confiding in
ASKfm is a question-and-answer site largely populated by teens. Almost half of its users are between thirteen and eighteen years old. Like many anonymous social media platforms, the site has become infamous for cyberbullying. In fact, several suicides have been linked to ASKfm. Articles in publications like The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, and Business Insider all describe the relationship between ASKfm and teen suicide. One needs only to read
The list of labels people use to describe their sexual orientation and their gender looks dramatically different than it used to. Surveys on sexual orientation as recent as five years ago included options like gay, lesbian, bisexual, and straight. The acronym LGBTQ, which itself grew from the umbrella term gay, which became GLB, then LGBT, only covers about one-third of the labels that self-described members of the LGBTQ community use
After the death of a parent, divorce is the second most traumatic event in a child’s life. And yet, for various reasons, divorce is common in the United States. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), about 40 to 50 percent of marriages in the U.S. end in divorce. For those couples who have children, that means, by definition, that their children will, or have already, experience a traumatic event.
Many parents know that nightmares, and night terrors, are common in young children. What they don’t realize is that they’re prevalent during adolescence and the teen years, too. Though nightmares tend to decrease after the age of ten, they don’t always disappear completely. It’s normal for adolescents, teenagers, and even adults to have occasional nightmares. Interestingly enough, adolescent girls seem to have bad dreams more often than boys do. But
In Palo Alto, California, the teen suicide rate is about five times the nation’s average. In this affluent Bay Area town, seven adolescents ended their own lives in the span of just ten years. Many of these suicides happened in waves, or clusters. A suicide cluster, according to the CDC, is “a group of suicides or suicide attempts, or both, that occur closer together in time and space than would
