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Teen Suicide: Put Up a Sign!

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Created: Friday, 20 November 2015 09:39
Written by Keith Deltano

I tour nationally speaking in schools about bullying, teen suicide, teen depression, drug and alcohol abuse, cutting, and other cheery subjects. When it comes to teen suicide and depression, sometimes I get… depressed.  We are dropping the ball.

I recently presented at a high school that suffered a suicide last year.  They brought me in to address bullying as well as the self-harming behaviors that often result from it: cutting, eating disorders, and suicidal ideation.  I hung out with the kids before and after the assemblies, walked the halls, ate lunch with them, and chilled in the commons area.  There was not one sign, poster, bulletin board, flyer, or messaging of any type present that informed the students where to go, or who to call, text, or message if they need help with self harming behaviors. Not one.

I find this same absurd situation in school after school I perform in. “We just sent our guidance counselors to California to attend a suicide prevention conference,” the principal in Georgia says.  I look around the office and hallways: no signs.  “All our teachers have taken a course on how to recognize when a teenager may be suicidal,” the guidance counselor says.  I look around the guidance office and classrooms: no signs that tell the students where to go if they are hurting.  “I’ve just completed a course on how to interact with a child that approaches me with self-harming behavior,” the school resource officer tells me.  I look at the door to his office, the halls around school, everywhere on campus.  There are no signs anywhere to tell the students that the officer is interested in their cutting problem.  None.

This has always been one of the great challenges to teen health education in America: the glaring gap that can occur between theory and practice. School districts throughout America have responded courageously to the teen suicide epidemic. Armies of principals, teachers, and particularly guidance counselors have attended workshops, conferences, and classes on teen suicide prevention.  The problem is that the kids don’t seem to have any idea that this is happening. 

We are getting trained to deal with them and not letting them know we are trained to deal with them.  I have asked principals about the lack of signage in their schools that directs students to help if they are suffering from suicidal ideation, cutting, eating disorders, or any other form of self harm.  I always seem to get a variation of the same answer, “They know they can see the guidance counselor about that.” Or “They know they can come to me.”

Do they?  Have you told them? Teens don’t know that drinking and driving might be a bad idea and they don’t know that having sex in the back seat of a car behind McDonalds is a bad idea.  They can do calculus but have a hard time figuring out that texting a naked picture of themselves might not be in their best interests.  So you expect that the teen hiding in the bathroom making herself throw up knows she can go see the guidance counselor the next morning and not be judged?  Students don’t know where they can go to get help.  We think they know, but they don’t.  Because we are adults and, quite literally, our brains work differently than theirs. A lot of tragedy could be avoided it we understood that teens don’t fully understand what we think they understand.

There needs to be a large sign that all the kids pass in the main hallway, “Feeling like hurting yourself? Come by Mrs. Jones room, or call or text 123-123-1234.”  It’s that simple.  I believe there may be another more subtle reason for the sparsity of signs. The stigma and mystery that surrounds mental illness will not allow some people to put a beacon of hope up in their schools.  We don’t want to admit that our students may be contemplating suicide, cutting, or any other self harming behaviors.  If we don’t acknowledge it, it isn’t there.  We’ll send our counselors to a workshop for three days.  But a sign that we will have to look at every day that reminds us of the uncomfortable precipice many of our students may be hanging over, no we’re not going to do that.  That’s not happening here and I don’t want to look at a sign every day that indicates it might.

Well, hurting kids are out there. You can put up a sign, or deal with the trauma a suicide will cause in your community.  You can put up signage in your school that tells the kids exactly where to go, who to call, who to text to get help for self harming behaviors, or watch the ambulance pull away.

Keith Deltano is an award winning educator and educational comedian.  You can learn more about his anti bullying and suicide prevention assemblies for high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools at www.DontBullyOnline.com

Use Technology to Fight Technology

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Created: Saturday, 20 June 2015 21:09
Written by Keith Deltano

Social media can be overwhelming.  There are so many platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, Kick, flickr, Pinterest, Tumblr, Vine and more.  How do you monitor it all? How do you protect your child from cyberbullying, pornography, predators and other negative influences?  You need help.  How do you keep track of what is happening on the family computer, the lap top in their room, and the multiple smartphones and tablets that exist in your home?

You need help.  You will use technology to fight technology.  You are going to down load an “internet filter”.  These filters will allow you to see what is happening on your child’s smart phone without actually picking up his/her phone.  These filtering devices will create a dashboard on your computer you can use to monitor multiple devices. 

Theses filters will block access to pornographic sites as well as violent sites or sites that promotes suicide and self-harm. They will also be able to give you a snapshot of what your student is doing with social media.  These services do costs money.  However, considering the protection they provide, they are extremely affordable.

Go to these websites to download filters and tools that will help you monitor your student’s use of social media. These tools will help you stop inappropriate messages/images from going out and from coming in.  They will also monitor your child’s social media use for you and report to you through email alerts.  You do not have to individually check your students Facebook, twitter, etcetera, accounts.  The below sites do it all for you (in varying degrees). 

www.uknowkids.com – An all in one service that monitors just about every social media platform and reports to you via instant emails.   Provides a dashboard that allows you to track nearly everything your child does online.

www.netnanny.com – Another all in one service that helps parents monitor online behaviors.  One of the most powerful internet filters on the market.

www.truecare.com – Monitors social media and reports to you like the above sites, however, does not cover as many platforms. 

   The above sites have some of the best reputations in the industry.  However, there are many more.  Simply Google “social media monitoring tools for parents”.

    The following sites do not monitor social media, however, they are some of the best sites for help if your child has been bullied, stalked, or harassed online.

www.haltabusektd.org  – Works with kids and teens that are experiencing online bullying.

www.cyberangels.org – Volunteers that work to track down stalkers and bullies online.

www.wiredsafety.com – Deals with cyber abuse. If the situation involves any sort of physical/life threats parents must report to the local police before Wired Safety will get involved.

The theme of this article is to use technology to fight technology.  There are many ways you can do this in addition to downloading an internet filter.  You can get the assistance form service providers themselves.  Every service provider includes parental controls in their package.  However, as I tour the US as an anti bullying speaker and survey my audience, very few parents are actually using these tools.

With most providers, it is as simple as grabbing your student’s phone, entering your email and access code and using the menu button to navigate to “parental controls” or “settings”.   There are many creative ways you can limit you’re students access.  For example, at many of the schools I go to, administrators complain of something they call texting fatigue.   Students are falling asleep at their desks because they have stayed up all night texting their peers.  Teen’s text an average of 60 times a day or 3417 times per month http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/19/texting-and-teens_n_1365650.html.  Much of that texting is occurring late in the evening or early in the morning. 

You can program your student’s phone not to accept or be able to send out texts at certain times of the day or night.  You can allow certain numbers (yours, relatives, and emergency numbers) within that limited time, however.  You can also limit times that your student can make and receive voice calls. 

You can do this.  Your student needs help to make good decisions.  Use technology to help him/her deal with technology.

Keith Deltano is an award winning teacher, private counselor, educational comedian and anti bullying speaker.  You can learn more about him at www.DontBullyOnline.com

More Articles ...

  1. Social Media and Your Child: The Talk

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