Coping with Parental Suicide

Specific purpose: To inform my audience about parental suicide, the causes, signs and treatments, how it affects children and how they can be helped.
Thesis statement: While suicide is a tragic loss for those left behind, it is particularly difficult and life altering for the children whose parents commits suicide. It is hard to understand how a parent could leave their children and even more, get an understanding of the effects on the child.
Introduction:
Suicide: “It is a horrible murderer that takes away our friends, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and what does it leave behind? The sad memory and wonder of if we could have helped is all that lingers when it takes away the ones close to us” (Heartleigh, Mibba creative writing blog)
Preview of main points:
A. Define suicide
B. Causes
C. Signs/treatments
D. How Parental suicide effects children
E. What can be done to help the child accept and heal
Body:
I. What is suicide?
A. The process of purposely ending one’s own life
B. Suicide is the 8th leading cause of death in males and the 16th leading cause of death in females
C. “Suicide is a major public health problem, with more than 32,000 persons dying by suicide each year in the United States, or about 80 suicides per day. In addition to completed suicides, another 1,500 unsuccessful suicide attempts occur each day. In the 18- to 65-year age group, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States” (Melissa Conrad Stoppler, MD-Medicine.net)
D. From the year 2000-2006 the rate of suicide has gradually increased both in the 10-24 years and 25-64 years old age group
E. The most popular methods used are gun shot, drug overdose, hanging and poisoning

II. Why do people commit suicide?
A. A family history of, exposure to suicide, altered levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, stressful life issues, depression, alcohol/drug dependence, they’re psychotic, they’re crying out for help, they’re impulsive, they’ve made a mistake
B. People who try to commit suicide are often trying to get away from a life situation that seems impossible to deal with

III. Signs and treatments
A. Signs: Losing interest in activities they used to enjoy, performing self-destructive behaviors such as heavily drinking, cutting, or drugs, pulling away from friends, talking about death or suicide or saying they want to hurt themselves
B. Treatments: hospitalized for treatment to be monitored, therapy is one of the most important parts of treatment, medication such as antidepressants

IV. How does parental suicide affect children?
A. “When children experience the sudden death of a parent, they go through what we call ‘traumatic grieving’. This kind of death is not just a painful thing to assimilate; it triggers an emotionally complicated or conflicted process” (Harold S. Koplewicz, MD-The Child Mind Institute)
B. Generates frightening thoughts, images, and feelings
C. They think they did something wrong and that it’s their fault, they may also ask the other parent if they are going to die too, could they have prevented it?
D. Kids may first not have any feelings toward or about their parent passing away and try to block them out by not talking or thinking about the parent they just lost
E. The biggest risks to a child’s emotional health is that they may not know how to express their feelings and for them to get an understanding of what happened
F. “Researchers at the John Hopkins Children’s Center found that children who are under the age of 18 when their parents commit suicide are 3 times as likely as children with living parents to later commit suicide themselves” (John Hopkins Children’s Center)

V. How to help a grieving child?
A. Talk to them, let them know you are there for them and you love them very much
B. Therapy- art therapy for younger children
C. Make sure the child knows they did nothing wrong
D. Make a photo album for the child which includes pictures of their parent who passed away
E. Plant a memorial or garden
F. Do something special on the deceased parents birthday
G. Make sure to talk often about the parent who died. Don’t avoid saying the person’s name around the child
Conclusion: Suicide should not be the answer to the problems life throws at you. Leaving behind a child or loved ones is a very selfish thing to do. Treatment is very significant and there are many ways to go about it. One should always remember what novelist Ben Okri said, “The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering.”