The Repeatedly Empty Statistics of Youth Suicide
When will parents learn that enough is enough?
“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”
— Joseph Campbell
When is enough enough?
What will it take for society to finally pause and say We can’t allow this anymore?
Each year is the same. Each day there is another report updating the statistics.
We know the numbers. We don’t need researchers to tell us what the problem is.
Children are depressed. And they are killing themselves.
Modernity Doesn’t Prevent Suicide
Singapore is a highly developed and modernized country. It boasts the best airline and airport in the world, a safe and civil society, low unemployment, a strong social support network and one of the top educational systems in the world.
It is an efficient country. It is the envy of most other countries for its productive government and thriving business environment. It is one of the leading places for companies to establish their Asian headquarters. A big reason for this is because of the highly ranked school system which gives expats confidence that their child won’t “fall behind.”
The country ticks all the boxes for modern success.
Yet in a country of only 5.5 million people, a young person takes their life every third day.
The suicide rates in Singapore for youth 10–29 hit a record high of 112 cases in 2021. This is the highest reported number since 2000 according to the non-profit Samaritans of Singapore as reported in The Straits Times.
A major reason for the increase has been the added pressures which came from the lockdowns over the past few years. A trend reflected around the world.
According to the U.S. CDC, the largest rate of suicide in the U.S. in 2021 occurred among males 15–24 — an 8% increase from the prior year.
Nearly 800,000 people die by suicide in the world each year according to the suicide prevention group, SAVE. This is roughly one death every 40 seconds.
Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death in the world for youth aged 15–24 years.
Numbers. Statistics. Research. Reports.
A child dies and becomes a statistic. People sit in meeting rooms going over the data each year and discussing what can be done. They talk and they talk and they talk and the situation gets worse.
They know what the issues are.
Stop the talking.
Listen to the Children
Put the research aside and speak to the children. They are telling us the problems.
They are screaming at the top of their lungs about their suffering yet we ignore them.
Children are bored and depressed in school. And our response is to force them to study more, work harder.
When a child complains about school we immediately feel that it is their issue, they are lazy and unmotivated. We blame their peers and technology because we do not want to admit the real issue.
Parents are the primary problem. They are the only ones who can control the situation.
It is no longer a debate about the failure of the education system around the world. The incessant drive to get children into the “best” schools creates a high-pressure, demanding model that fails the vast majority of children.
Even though we know our children are unhappy in school we spend an additional $100 billion a year worldwide on after school test preparation programs. The child already is unhappy and we then spend more money forcing them to do more of something that they hate.
This is abuse and madness.
There are a variety of factors that lead to youth suicide. But a primary driver is a result of the high pressure education system and a demanding society that perpetuates a broken and destructive model.
The situation is not getting better by any measure. It is not a U.S. or Singapore problem but a worldwide issue with very few exceptions.
Unless we draw the line as parents and bring a stop to this immoral and unethical situation we are going to be reading the same statistics next year.
Enough.
Today there are many alternatives for a child to learn than sitting in a classroom dealing with depression: self-directed learning, home schooling, hybrid models, tutoring, parental engagement, community pod groups, alternative models.
At a minimum parents can quit asking their children about what grade they got or how they did on the test. These tell us nothing about a child’s character and only compound their sadness, loneliness and depression and potential path to suicide.
If we as parents lead by example we help to alleviate the problem.
But don’t believe me or what the research says on our failed education system.
Just ask your child.
Please.
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