SUICIDE is a tool being used by some children to teach their parents a lesson.

This was a finding highlighted by Dr Beverley Scott, child and family therapist, in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

“One of the main reasons children commit suicide is to get rid of their parents, and to teach their parents a lesson – children in general, but mainly those under 12. Children in that age group, up to 12, do not understand the finality of death and many of them have told me that they wanted to kill themselves and come back to see how their parents are crying,” Dr Scott told the Sunday Observer.

“They say they would then say to them, ‘Serve you right,’ because they are not treating them good. They don’t understand the finality of death and they believe that if they do that, they will teach their parents a lesson.”

Children will deal with anything, Scott added, as long as they have their parents beside them. As such, she underscored the importance of stable parent-children relationships.

“They [children] will deal with any issue out there in society. There is no problem that children can’t surmount if their parents are their friends, if they love their parents, and if their parents take good care of them.”

A joint 2014 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Ministry of Health report found that more than 60 per cent of people admitted to hospital, having attempted suicide, were below the age of 25.

Scott pointed to numerous cases she has dealt with in which she detected suicidal ideations among children.

“One year, I had a camp for children who were suicidal. [A total of] 50 children were at the camp; all of them were suicidal and some of them attempted suicide. There was one of them who attempted suicide three times. We worked with them for a summer and they all overcame their tendencies,” she recalled.

Noted suicide prevention counsellor Dr Donovan Thomas chimed in, saying more children are committing suicide today. Thomas said he was unable to provide statistics but underscored that years ago when studying suicide among children, the category was zero to 15. The category went down to zero to 10, and then zero to five over time.

“We’re seeing even children under 10 taking their own lives. And there are a variety of reasons why children take their own lives — verbal and sexual abuse, overall sense of hopelessness, isolations, the feeling of despair, and they want to get back at people who have hurt them. And so, when the person is so powerful who has hurt them and they are unable to physically manage that person, it’s not unusual for them to direct that anger at themselves,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Last August, U-Matter, the chat service launched in March 2022 as a lifeline to youth ravaged by the novel coronavirus pandemic, revealed that a number of children were struggling with suicidal ideations, depression, anxiety, loneliness, lack of support, and performance anxiety.

Director of child and adolescent mental health in the Ministry of Health and Wellness Dr Judith Leiba said statistics gathered at the time indicated that Jamaican children were “battling with anguish on an emotional plane”.

The majority of the cries for help, she said, were placed between 11:00 pm and midnight on any given day, with 26 per cent of messages coming in on a Tuesday, 16 per cent on Monday and Wednesday, Friday 14 per cent, and Saturday and Sunday 10 per cent. Sixty-six per cent of the calls were from females, 32.5 per cent males, and 1.5 per cent non-binary.

Scott added: “Since COVID with the lockdowns and frustrations, a lot of things caused parents to relate to their children in different ways because of what they were going through themselves. More children have suicidal tendencies because of that.”

Scott told the Sunday Observer that there are various suicidal signs that parents can look out for.

“A child who has been happy and bubbly not speaking to anyone all of a sudden; a child not eating, not sleeping well, or eating too much and sleeping too much. Teenagers who neglect their hygiene, don’t want to bathe, and secluding themselves. Those who say things like God or nobody likes them; those who say they don’t like their parents and that they don’t have anything to live for. [Running] away from home is one of the signs too,” she said, noting nonetheless that these indicators are not necessarily easy for parents or guardians to spot.

“A boy at a high school was telling his mother that he didn’t like his younger sister, who was about six years old. They had different fathers, and the sister was telling him that the house did not belong to his father. He kept telling his mother that he didn’t like what his sister was saying. He told his mother to talk to her about it and the mother kept telling him to not pay her any mind. He attempted suicide,” Scott told the Sunday Observer.

“Sometimes parents think that the things are trivial and that there is nothing in it for them to go to an extreme. But we need to look from the point of view of the person who is complaining, rather than looking from our perspective or point of view,” she continued.

Thomas added that when children are not able to manage their own “anger and hostility” they sometimes direct it inward.

To treat with this, he said, Jamaica has to accept the fact that it is an issue, and highlight warning signs and risk factors.

“Children are hurting themselves and we want to do all that we can to be able to help them before it becomes an issue. We need to know the signs of those at risk, we need to know what are the warning signs and what are the risk factors.”

Scott further lamented that, oftentimes, parents are looking from their reality rather than the children’s reality.

“They do not put their feet in the children’s shoes, and they try to console them and think that is it — but they actually have to do something else. Rather than brushing it aside, tell them ‘I see what you’re going through… I see it, I feel it, I understand.’ That will help.” she told the Sunday Observer.

That is why it is important that children are exposed to therapy, Scott argued.

“One of the things is that children may feel guilty about something — something could’ve happened and they feel like they caused it…like a death in a family, a child could take it on and believe that they caused it… grandma spoke to them some weeks ago and they were very rude. If grandma dies, they feel guilty and nobody may know that is happening,” she said.

“Children don’t understand the dynamics of behaviour, and so you have to let them know that they didn’t do anything wrong to cause certain things to happen. As soon as something happens in a family that traumatises an adult, children should come in to therapy as well — even if they are a year old, it affects them the same way. I have a lot of case studies when it comes to children and there’s a way to deal with young children in therapy. You can use play therapy, and a lot of things can come out through play.”

Warning signs of suicide

• Depression

• Previous suicide attempts

• Preoccupation with death

• Statements like, “You would be better off without me” or “I wish I were dead”

• Talking openly about wanting to kill oneself

• Development of a suicide plan, acquiring the means to carry it out, “rehearsal” behaviour, or setting a time for the attempt

• Making out a will or giving away favourite possessions

• Inappropriately saying goodbye

• Making ambiguous statements like, “You won’t have to worry about me anymore”, “I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up”, or

• “I just can’t take it anymore”

• Suddenly switching from being very depressed to being very happy or calm, for no apparent reason.