Understanding teenage suicide

Study findings on suicides among teenage students in 2023 that a local non-government organisation (NGO), Aachol Foundation, has come up with are concerning. The study done by the said NGO is based on reports published in the print and electronic media as well as online portals. Though the findings are not the product of an in-depth social research going into the background history of each case of suicide, still they provide valuable insights into how our teenagers, especially school and undergraduate level students are emotionally coping with life in their families, schools and among peers. And in this era of social media, it would also be necessary to factor in their online emotional experience, particularly when buffeted by poison dart of criticism, abuse or outright bullying. Clearly, as the Aachol reports go, the victim teenagers were unable to handle the experiences properly. So, suicide was the ultimate answer to the experiences they went through in their emotional life. Teenage girls, according to the study report, have been found to be more prone to suicide than boys as about 60 per cent of the suicide cases under scrutiny, are girls. And 67 per cent of all the suicide victims were 13 to 19 years old. The rest were college and university students. In the previous studies, too, it was the teenagers who committed the most suicides. Experts point to a host of factors lying behind the tragedies. Those include academic pressure, guardian's insensitivity towards emotional imbalance their children experienced during puberty and resulting withdrawal syndrome increasing the risk of poor self-efficacy, self-esteem and academic achievement and heightened level of depression and anxiety. And the adolescents going through these emotional storms had apparently no trusted or sympathetic quarters to share their feelings with. In the study report under consideration, the victims of suicide are students. But the problem is not limited to students alone. If the study was more inclusive, for example, covering working class families, whose children had never gone to school, the result could be a better representative of our teenage population. And compared to their middle class counterparts, those children are often subjected to worse forms of abuse and violence both at the hands of their parents, acquaintances and other members of their community. Rising drug abuse and teen violence are no less important issues affecting the teenage section of society in need of urgent addressing. In the case of suicides among students, experts including psychologists often advise good parenting, raising awareness among the guardians, teaches and others concerned to handle the issue effectively. For mentally compromised students, they suggest therapy at mental clinics. The recommendations are definitely useful when we are discussing the situation of a limited number of victims such as those covered by the study in question. But when all other segments of the teenage population are brought under the study, the number of victims will increase markedly. And in that case, a few psychiatrists and mental clinics would not be enough to address the issue effectively. And in that case, preventive measures rather than curative ones would be required to be given serious consideration.
The suicide victims under scrutiny did not belong to a traditional society that their parents, teachers and other senior members had grown up in. As a result, children of today are often misunderstood by their guardians. And that is due mostly to the transformative impact of modern information technology and its products like the social media on their lives. In fact, today's children live in a different world from their parents'. Experts need to take all these changes taking place in society into their consideration to understand the phenomenon of teenage suicide.

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