Suicide Prevention: How to Help your Teen with Suicidal Thoughts

Hey everybody, and welcome to Roadmap to Joy. I'm

Megan Dean. I work for Embark I have two teenagers of my own. I

have a 16 year old daughter, who's a junior in high school

and a 13 year old son who's in middle school. And we're here

today with Jake, he's joining us for a second time. We're really

excited to have you on Jake.

Yeah, excited to be here. I am Jake Sparks, the

Embark treatment director. I am a licensed Marriage and Family

Therapist and have been able to work with teens, adolescents and

their families for just a bit over a decade. So super excited

to be here. I have I'm not in the teenager stage yet. I have

lots of I have a herd of small children. So not yet teens. But

I'm very excited to be here and talk about this very important

topic.

Yeah, definitely. And September is suicide

awareness month, which is why we're here today. Unfortunately,

this is an ever prevant topic for many parents. For me,

personally, just to share with you all, you know, growing up, I

did have some close friends who are impacted by suicide in some

family members as well. So this is definitely a personal topic

for me, and one that I'm really happy to, you know, share more

information about and help get more awareness around. So

yeah,

I think most, it's hard to find someone that's not touched by

suicide in some way. Myself personally, personally, and

professionally, again, have encountered it. And the ironic

part of it is, the science is so good. We know so much about how

to treat depression, how to address suicide, and it's really

a matter of getting the right information into the right

people's hands. Because there's so much that we can do to

address to address the suicide across the country.

Yeah,

definitely. And yeah, I guess a good place to start would be

this is just a really sensitive topic overall, you know, it's

tough to talk about for some people. So really, like, what's

the best place to start?

Yeah, good question. So I always recommend

we start with just some terms. Because it is so uncomfortable,

that a lot of times I find when a family comes and sees me, they

use a lot of terms that aren't really talking about it as a way

to talk about it. Because all those really sensitive issues,

we avoid it directly. So I want to review a quick set of terms

that we do use and then some that I will encourage us not to

use. So whenever I have a client come see me and they're

exhibiting some sort of what I would say self-injurious

behavior, I'm always trying to tease apart is this suicidal

self injurious behavior, or non suicidal self injurious

behavior. So we know there's a population of clients, typically

adolescents, or young adults who might enact intentionally enact

bodily harm as a form of emotional regulation. So this,

you hear about cutting or other types of self directed violence.

And we know that that's actually not a part of suicide. However,

when you're a parent, or you see find out, my daughter has been

doing what? It's really hard to not jump to, does she want to be

dead? That can be really difficult. So we want to really

tease apart is a suicidal self injurious behavior, or non

suicidal self injurious behavior? And that's so

important to start, because that really helps identify the

treatment trajectory. Now, both are problematic, obviously. But

that really helps us to identify where we need to go, and, and

what the course of treatment will look like. There's nothing

worse than being really misattuned, if I have a client

that comes sees me, and I just talk for hours about suicide,

and they're like, "I'm not suicidal, can we give that up?"

And that can be a total mismatch. So we want to make

sure we get that part. Right, if that makes sense.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely does so. So you know,

and then what's next, as far as you mentioned, talking to, to

our clients, and our kids is like, what do you say to them?

How do you start that topic with them? Um, in that conversation?

So one of the questions a lot of parents have

is, if I start bringing it up, am I gonna somehow, like put

that idea in their head? Is talking about it dangerous? And

where I think that's mostly coming from his parents

particularly see their children as in such a fragile state. And

sometimes I've even been operating on like, if I can just

make it through the day, how to keep my child happy. They're

smiling, they're on the couch, okay, they're talking to me

things good. Don't rock the boat. So a lot of parents are

just, like, if we talk about what's really going on, I'm,

that's going to be so stress inducing. And I might create,

Yeah, I get that

that ideation. So the research is very clear. That

doesn't happen. If someone's thinking about suicide, they are

thinking about it, whether you're talking about it or not.

So the most protective factor A parent can do. One of the most

protective things is they can have some really clear, honest

conversations and create an atmosphere where there's

vulnerability, and there's empathy and kind of set some

norms in the family that we talk about what's really going on,

and for, especially for a parent to say, there's nothing too big

for me there. was nothing too scary for me I am 100% bought

into you and what you need. I'll sometimes tell parent my

clients, I'm willing to walk to hell with you. If that's where

we need to go, I don't want you going alone. So let's you, me,

you and I go there together.

I love that that's, that's just so empathetic and

like putting yourself in their shoes to and really being there

for them. So that's great. So what would be like the first

question like a parent, if like a parent feels that maybe their

their their child is going in that direction? Like, how do

they break into that topic with them? Like, without seeming too

overwhelming or overbearing? Or, you know, what could be like the

first question that you ask?

Yeah, well, so what's probably also already

happening, is there some other red flags that are parents are

seeing around general mental health? So it's typically

clients, or it's or adolescents are not experiencing suicidal

thoughts or suicidal behaviors out of the blue? There's

typically been an ongoing mental health issue. So usually some

symptoms of depression, maybe anxiety, is was there a major

trauma that just occurred? So we hope by the time this question

comes up of, are you safe, that we have a pattern or a history

of talking about mental health together, and that's seen as a

valid, reliable, safe, secure process that a child parent and

a child can go through together? It, then that's actually one of

the reasons I tell parents talk to your kids about their mental

health. Because you don't want this to be the first time you've

ever talked to them.

Right.

Right? You don't want to be like, Hey, by the

way, I heard this. And that's a Whoa, like, you want to be

rehearsed and practiced. And so that's the first thing I always

say is establish, regardless if your kid is sick or not, are

where they are on the mental health continuum of health. We

want to establish patterns that reinforce security and safety.

And so that when you do need to have the conversations, the hard

conversations, you already have that relationship and connection

that's there.

Right? That report is already there. And it's it's

more of a not a surprise question.

Yeah, yeah.

So Okay.

When that came up, I might start by saying, Are you

feeling safe today? Okay, tell me tell me how safe you're

feeling. And a lot of times, parents are like well don't want

to be intrusive. I don't want to push their boundaries, I don't

want to push them away. And I always say, my experience, I

don't know what the research has on this my experience as a

clinician, that if a parent doesn't respond overtly,

sometimes the internal narrative of the adolescents is my parent

doesn't care.

It's like fine balance.

Yeah. Because I usually the way,especially if

you're already prone to some suicidal ideation, maybe some

depression, anxiety, those most of the times those adolescents

or young adults are not sitting there thinking, my parents are

so respectful of my boundaries, they just love me so much that

they know when to not ask me about these things. They don't

think through that. That's not the thought you never asked

about it. It's they don't care enough to ask, or they're too

afraid of what I might say, I am frightening my parents. Right

there, we're gonna misattuned, and we're gonna miss each other.

Yeah, that makes sense. What about what not to

say?

Yeah, parent. Equally important, or maybe more

so important. So there's a few terms that I hear a lot. And I

want to eradicate them from our nomenclature as a society. So a

couple things that I might hear sometimes is, oh, they just want

attention. Right? It's like, oh, you're chronically suicidal. So

you must just want attention. And so then sometimes parents,

or even therapists will label that behavior, as they'll say,

Well, it's not really suicidal. It's parasuicidal or suicidal

gesture, or is that make sense though, kind of couch it is

like, Oh, it's just they just used it for attention. And

that's really problematic. So, so let's not use the term

suicidal gesture. Parasuicidal, let's not use any of those

terms. What we need to get at, firstly, is saying, this is

suicidal self injurious behavior, or non suicidal self

injury. So that's why I started with that. Even the term we've

been talking a lot about suicide attempt. Some things that get

really mixed into that is a lot of times I'll hear well, it was

a failed suicide attempt. And I will say, that's not a failure.

That's that's a win, like failure is not good. Or

sometimes I'll hear people talk about it was a successful

suicide. And I don't want the word success and suicide in the

same sentence.

Right?

Right. So that's some of the first parameter is

really again need to be clear about our language. This is self

directed, harm, suicidal self directed harm or non suicidal

and what that that does is it actually frees us up to see the

child to see what's actually going on. So as soon as we say,

Oh, it's just for attention, well, they don't really want to

die. And we're just dismissive. I always tell parents like, well

think about that for a second. If you're if I'm a child, I'm a

15 year old, scared to go to middle school. And the way for

me to, if I did just want attention, the way for me, I

have no other avenues of getting that emotional need met, that I

have to scream from the rooftops. "Everyone look at how,

how much pain I'm in, look at how distressed I'm in?" That's a

that's a pretty powerful statement

Yeah

It's, it's perfectly natural and normal for

a human to want love and care and attention. It's actually

necessary. So we can't just dismiss it in terms of oh, they

just want attention. Because those are actual real valid

means. It's, it's an effective way to get that. And we can't

just dismiss it. Does that make sense?

Yeah, totally. And, you know, you hear oftentimes,

you know, after things have happened with kids is, you know,

Oh, we did see some warning signs. Oh, wait, we did see

cries for help. And I think they are dismissed. And that's kind

of to your point of that people dismiss that without really

taking it as seriously as maybe we should. Yeah, so

Or it wasn't a "genuine attempt." Because if

you really wanted to, she would had done this, and like, Okay,

you're totally missing the point here, we need to get to what's

this underlying need? Why is this child in so much pain and

distress? But you asked, well, if I'm a parent, how do I start

to talk to my kids? If you're seeing a perpetual problem that

keeps coming up? Then you know that that's serving a function

somewhere, there's something adaptive, and actually something

as crazy as it sounds stabilizing about that? Right?

So a lot of times when we work with clients that are they've

been having suicidal thoughts for five years, like, oh, ever

since fifth grade, I've just always thought this. And then

they do therapy and they get better and they start their

depression really wanes, and they find passions and their

hobbies and they're excited about life. And then they're

like, Oh, crap, for the first time in my life, I've I'm going

to be alive till I'm 20 I've never thought that I would be

alive to but now that I am and I what do I want to do when I grow

up? And who do I want to be? And how do I want to vote? And all

of these things all this Then they're having to confront all

those that's really hard and stressful. But staying in this

place of suicidal thoughts and actions prevents all of that

from ever taking place. So in that kind of warped sense, it's

actually a very stabilizing force in someone's life, if that

makes any sense.

Yeah,

no, it definitely makes sense. Yeah, definitely. So okay, so

you mentioned depression. And when one question I have as a

parent, and just, you know, people that I know is like, do

you have to have depression, before you get to the point of

suicidality, suicidal ideation?

Yeah,

Yeah, great question. So I don't know the statistics off the top

of my head, the majority of those who experienced suicidal

thoughts, and engage in suicidal self injurious behavior are

likely to have some form of depression. However, that's not

always the case. So there are some other issues that might

come up, that would lead to suicide. So I'm thinking either

severe mental illness, so some type of psychosis or

schizophrenia or something like that, where it's like, they

seemed fine. And all sudden, this just comes up out of the

blue. So that could be there. Sometimes we see a lot with,

there's been a trauma, it's like, they were fine, something

awful happens. And then, ever since that moment, it just the

switch flips, and all of a sudden, they start to feel so

disconnected from their body and maybe want or start thinking

about suicide. It's a little bit of chicken or the egg, because

you might say, well, doesn't that person also technically

qualify as depressed? as well? Maybe yes, maybe no. But the you

don't have to necessarily have this long track record of months

and months and months of being depressed to finally culminate

in suicidal ideation. It can happen more quickly, although

that's, I think, a little bit more, a little bit more rare.

Okay. Okay.

There's also people who are very impulsive. So

again, maybe attached to some other mental health issues,

bipolar, or some other cognitive or executive functioning delay,

where they seem pretty normal, and they're actually happy and

don't meet criteria for depression. But all of a sudden,

they get an argument with a partner or something negative

happens, and they can be really impulsive, and they can go to

that dark place, almost like a switch is flipped. Does that

make sense? So, so it's not always depression, but I would

say most of the time, okay. That's what we're looking at.

Okay.

All right. That makes sense. So, what are some

of those, you're mentioning these like warning signs and

things like that, that we should be looking for as parents and

caregivers. And so what's like the warning sign that you need

to get help now? Like, you need to reach out for crisis help.

When it when it comes to suicide?

Yeah, so my preference is that we intervene

early. We talk a lot about is, well, let's identify the risk

factors and the protective factors. And the theory is the

more of the risk factors, the greater likelihood and the more

protective factors, the lower your likelihood. So some things

I brought some notes here, just to make sure I get it all. So

some some common risk factors for individuals. So if you've

made a prior attempt, so history of suicidal self directed

violence or self injury, again, overall mental health. If you

have a history of mental health substances, that's the other

one, I was going to say sometimes suicide can be

attached to a substance. If had they not been on that substance

substance. Those ideations or behaviors wouldn't have

happened. So what's the substance use? What's that like?

Is there...How are they doing in their social role? So for

adolescents, it's typically are they going to school? Are they

successful school? Are they not? So those are things? How...how

much access do they have to lethal means. And then, as a

clinician, I always want to know what type of adverse childhood

experiences has gone on? We talked, you here on the podcast,

we talk a lot about co-regulation, and their ability

to our ability to co-regulate with a safe caregiver drives our

ability to self regulate throughout our life. And if we

have these interruptions in early childhood or throughout

childhood, our ability to self regulate will be greatly

diminished. And if you can't self regulate, that might be a

correlate with suicidal ideation. So those are some

individual factors that we just know, risk factors that

chronically can build up. So if those are present, and then I

started to see a major change in behavior, I might think that

made There's an increase in intensity of the suicidal

ideation or behavior. So all of a sudden, they start giving away

their possessions, or they start to kind of give these pseudo

goodbyes or, well, I don't know, nothing really matters that

might give me pause. If there's a antecedent event. So an

argument or a breakup, something like that, right, that can

really tip the scales. We also know if there's a family history

of suicide. And then high conflict, high, high stress,

chaotic relationships, where co-regulation can't happen.

Those are all really big risk factors I'd want to look at.

Okay, that makes sense. As far as you know, how

to respond to my child when they are, with empathy? I know we

talked about empathy a lot in the last episode as well. How do

you respond with empathy to your child if they're having those

suicidal thoughts?

One of the things as a, as a therapist if a client

comes in to my office, and it seems sometimes it seems like

it's always as, as a therapist, I'm, maybe I don't ever want to

be caught off guard, obviously. So when a client comes in, and

they say, I've been having, here's the thoughts I've been

having, and here's the actions I've taken. My first inclination

is, I always want to say something like, gosh, thank you

so much for telling me. I'm so glad. I hate that you're going

through this. But I'm so glad to know it. It could have been easy

to not tell me and I'm so glad that didn't happen. What I

noticed, so when I do that, so it does two things. One is it

helps the client or the child be like, okay, the he's, there's

some security here, he's got, I'm not going to overwhelm him.

Does that make sense? I mean, he's not afraid of me. Now. He's

not. He's like, Oh, he's glad to know this. That's a little bit

weird. But okay, and we'll see where this goes. So I kind of

starts to instill like, Okay, we got this. Oh, this is an issue

we can handle. The thing that I like, saying it for me is it

reminds me, I got this is, this is something we can handle. Even

therapists are not impervious to emotions and fear. And there's

all these things. And that's something no therapist wants to

hear. But yet, it's the thing that we most want to hear. Like,

it's if it's real for you, I want to know it. Right? So if

you're going through hell, I need to be there with you. So

please include me in on this. So that's always the first. Maybe

not those exact words. But that first sentence is like, Thank

you for telling me. What else can you tell me? Can I ask some

questions? And then I would start tease, you know, starting

to tease that apart to our safety, safety assessment and

safety planning that we can do as trained professionals. If I

was a parent, I would want to reinforce that same idea of

thank you so much for telling me what else is real for you? How

else can we talk? What else can you share? In general, if you're

having that talk, I hope that your your, your family is

already receiving some mental health services. If not, this is

certainly the time to reach out and get those services

accommodated for in general, we kind of look at this hierarchy,

as we talked about. I'll go back to some terms if that's okay.

Yeah,

Because this is where sometimes we get lost. So

a lot of times parents will couch this as "it's

suicidality." And I really don't like that term suicidality,

because it's kind of this catch all. Yeah, like, I don't know.

And don't make me even think about it. It's just something

out there. And we'll just call it suicidality. I actually want

to think about the specifics. Like the devil is in the details

to some degree, so I always separate in well, they're

suicidal ideations and suicidal behaviors.

Okay.

And somewhere in there, there's suicidal urges.

Okay.

Okay. So a client can come and say, I have these

thoughts that keep coming to me. I don't want to act on them. I

haven't been acting on them. But here are the thoughts that I

think I think if I could just do X, Y, and Z, and that thought

plays out in my head. So we, we kind of see how far we are on

that continuum. Okay. So you have the thoughts, but you've

not done any preparatory actions you haven't thought about? You

know, I'll ask have you thought about how you might play this

out? Like, oh, no, I just think about what it would be like to

not have to be in so much pain.

Right. Right.

So that's kind of one continuum, then I want to

start asking, Well, tell me about the urges Do you have? Or

if they're like, yes, here's my thoughts. Here's how I would do

it. Okay, have you had urges? Have you had impulses? Well, I

almost did something yesterday, but I stopped myself, like,

okay, let's talk through that. And then the last kind of far

end of the continuum was the what we call suicidal behaviors.

And this could include things like preparatory behaviors, so

things that you might do in advance to put their put some

affairs in order or to collect or gather materials, whatever

that might be. So as those are kind of how we think about risk

if you're on one end, just having the thought, no urges, no

behaviors. You're on the continuum. But you're this and

the farther down you go, the higher the risk and the more

immediate intervention that's necessary,

Right? And as a parent, you're like, anywhere

along that spectrum or that continuum is scary, and you want

to get help right away. So I, you know, as a parent, being in

that myself, sometimes it you know, it just, it's hard for a

parent to be like, okay, so you're just in the beginning of

it. All right. We're okay. But you really have to take action

still..

Yeah. So yeah. When something's what I recommend,

sometimes it's so so I'll get asked like, what do I need to

take? Take my daughter to the ER?

Yes.

What? So? Again, if my thought is if you have to ask

and the answer is probably yes. But what because what we don't

want to do, I've seen parents, I'm against someone receiving

intervention they don't need, it's so important that we are

the we take it seriously, and how we respond as caregivers

will directly impact how the child interprets the events.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So I've had parents that like, oh, we kind of just

bumped along, and we kind of just kept going business as

usual, like, Oh, thanks for telling me. But let's get your

math homework done tonight. And we'll talk again tomorrow. And

it's like, it's not that bad. And, and things just keep going

on. I've seen other parents say, we didn't actually come to find

out need to go to the ER. But having this kind of blow up,

made all of us look at it. And we actually kind of needed for

it to blow up because we were just in this rut of same old,

same old, and we needed something big and drastic to

happen to our family. So that we could all wake up and take it

take it more seriously and see where we are. Most parents are

not trained mental health professionals. So it is always a

little bit of a guessing game. And this is not something that

you want to, to guess at.

Right.

So if you're concerned, and you're asking the

question, you should take immediate action. Maybe this is

a great time to identify the help that you can have. So the

new 988 number, super helpful, they can call and kind of walk

the parent through or even the adolescent through some steps

and give us some clear direction. Parents should be

aware of other local agencies. So if I have a client or a

child, if I'm the parent of a teen that's sometimes ends up on

this continuum, I would know what am I local resources? How

do I connect to someone, hopefully, you're already

working with a mental health professional.

Right.

We want to almost prepare for the worst and hope

we never need that. But that's not the time to man, we never

confronted this reality.

Right.

We want to make sure we have a clear plan and

how the process works.

Definitely. And now nowadays, there's even those

mental health urgent cares that are popping up.

Yeah.

They're becoming more and more common. So at

least it's a place you can go a lot more accessible, which is

nice. So I know there's some of those places that then you know,

you then get continued care after that. But it's a great

place to go. If you're a parent, and you're not sure what to do.

But you hear these things need to take action right away.

Yep, absolutely.

So. So you mentioned family a lot. I've heard that.

Yeah.

The family system a lot.

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about why it's so important,

especially in this situation to have that family support system?

Yeah. Great. Great, great question. So one of the

things I'm always telling parents is, first of all, being

a parent is hard.

Yes

Hats off to every parent. I always want to be

sensitive. But so sometimes, if I have the rela--I can kind of

joke with them. And say, I don't know whether or not your

parenting is part of the problem.

Yeah

It might be. Let's just acknowledge the fact that

Oh,

it might be, it might not be, but let's just put that out

there. However, I do know that your parenting is 100% a part of

the solution.

Nice.

So one way or the other, we need you, you need to

be involved.

Yeah.

yeah. No parent is perfect, either. And, you know, we can't

even co regulate ourselves all the time, like we've talked

about. So, yeah, it's definitely a family system.

Yeah. And that's it, you bring up another great

point is it is not possible for a dysregulated parent, to

provide a co-regulatory experience for their child. So

at the same time, I cannot imagine something more

deregulating than your child experiencing suicidal thoughts

or suicidal behaviors.

Exactly, yeah.

So at the moment when your child needs you the most is probably

when you're the least equipped to be there. And so that's

really why it's so important to get that family help and that

family support.

And like, would you even go as far as to recommend

for the parents to go and get mental health, you know,

counseling and therapy themselves?

Yeah, so my bias is that most of us could use a

little bit more therapy in our lives, just in general. So as a

blanket statement. Yes. I can't diagnose via podcast for every

single family. But yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is a great

opportunity for the parents. Again, maybe you maybe you were

part of the problem, maybe you have been missing. Missing

something. And there's, you have a hole in your own parenting

style that's going to perpetuate unless you fix it. Or maybe not,

maybe you are the perfect parent. But maybe you do exist.

But going through this experience, in and of itself can

be painful and traumatic enough that you'll need some help and

support.

Yeah that's I was gonna say it's just the

experience itself can can, you know, make you want and need to

get therapy yourself? Yeah, to be able to just handle the

stress and the the the emotions that come along with all of

this. So

yeah,

yeah, it's also worth noting that I've never met a parent who

wasn't also parented.

Right?

And so many of us parent our children however we

were parented.

Right?

Whether we want to or not, or in reaction, so. So

again, yeah, I just love that family. Like, let's see what's

understand. Let's see what's happening as a system as a

whole. Because we're all going to be a part of it. And it's

going to require the whole family.

Yeah.

Even questions that sometimes like, okay, so if my

15 year old child is experiencing this, but I have

this 11 year old.

Yeah,

year? Like, they feel it and they know

something's up. So there's a lot of those family dynamics. So

even if they weren't a problem to begin with, they gonna need

some, some direct attention.

Yeah, I was gonna say that with families who have

multiple siblings, you know, in the household. There's a lot of

impact on the whole family in this situation. So even that

younger older sibling can really, you know, need some

counseling themselves.

Yeah.

To help them through the whole family through this

situation. So yeah, yeah, it's definitely important. So here's

the question. So what if you go to your child to talk about the

feelings that they're having, and they push you away? Like,

they don't want to talk about it? Then what do you do?

so totally. Maybe that's expected? Maybe it's not, but

Yeah,

it's, I think, fairly common. So what I always say as a parent,

your job is to do what is developmentally appropriate for

your child, independent of what that child's preferences are.

Okay. So sometimes when we're the most distressed or the most

hurting, we're least able to care for ourselves is the times

we most don't want anyone to help us.

Yeah

Like "leave me alone." I mean, and we, so it's

hard to be respectful, but what we always say so we talked about

this co-regulation. So a caregiver provides experiences

of co-regulation, which from child I I have a very small

children. So I think about this a lot. As a child, we

co-regulate together. And that builds the scaffolding for

future self regulation to take place on. And that's what

actually builds the parts of the brain that's needed for self

regulation is co-regulation. Now, what's hard about this is

when you are most dysregulated is when you are the least

receptive to empathy. You are the least receptive to care,

that's actually a great indicator that you're not

regularly regulating yourself. So I'll have talked with

clients, they'll come into my office, and they'll say, Oh, my

parents just need to leave me alone. I went in my room, and

I'm calming down, I just need to calm down on my own. And I'd

say, okay, that makes sense. But are you actually self

regulating? Or are you becoming more dysregulated? Because if

you are self regulating, you will become more open to your

parents' empathy. So if you go in your room for 30 minutes, and

if you truly self regulated, you would come out and be receptive

to your parents. If you come out of the room, and you're just as

unreceptive as you were before. I mean, then maybe there's some

other relational dynamics of where the relationship but in

general, if you cannot be receptive to empathy from a

caregiver, whomever that is, that's a sign that you're

dysregulated.

You're dysregulated, yeah.

And when that's happening, that's actually the

caregivers job. Like I don't ask my three year old, in the middle

of a tantrum, what type of ice cream he wants at that moment, I

just say you don't need, here's what you actually need. I'm

going to parent you. I'm going to give you what you need,

because you're a three year old. And I don't expect....It would

be wrong of me to expect for you to know exactly what you need in

this moment.

Yeah, really take control, you have to take

control that situation. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. So it is can be hard of. And that's

why I say it's best if you've had a long, ongoing history of

talking about this. But if some families are like, we've never

talked about emotions, or how we feel, and all sudden, my child

ends up in the ER, and this is the first time I've ever asked

my son, how he feels inside, or how he feels about himself. I've

never had that conversation. And so I'm like, "Well, I can

understand him not opening upimmediately at the first

time." So we want, we want to make sure we rebuild those. But

yeah, sometimes parents get so "I want them to be happy. I

don't want them to feel upset. And if I can just keep their

emotions in check all the time."

Yeah, that's a tough job.

You're never gonna be able to do that. You're never

going to be able it's not your job to keep them happy in this

window. It's your job to prepare them for this.

That's right.

Because life's gonna give them everything. And

it's your job to always meet them at developmentally with

what they need independent of what their preference is.

Yeah,

definitely. Yeah. Okay, great. Thanks for answering that. So I

think we've covered almost everything on our list of

topics, Jake, anything else that you want to share? You know,

you're such an expert in this area. Is there anything else

that you've seen come up with your clients or parents, that

will be really important and helpful to share?

So I would say, so can I share a couple of

statistics? So a couple things to keep in mind. So one in three

young adults between the ages of 18 and 25, experienced mental

behavioral, or emotional health issues in the past year. Suicide

was the leading cause of death for 18 to 25 year olds,

Wow.

It has historically been, and it's even stretching

down into adolescence. 26.9% of teens, ages 12 to 17 have one or

more mental, emotional, developmental, behavioral

problems. So almost 30% of all teens have some sort of

emotional mental health problem. So these rates are going the

wrong direction. So one of the things, if it's up to you to fix

the suicide problem, what's the you have unlimited funds and

resources? How would you do it? The number one thing that I

would do is for parents to stop giving their kids phones at such

an early age.

So as we talked about, it's up to the parent to

Yeah.

be developmentally attuned to what the child's ready for. And

we can see the impacts of social media, particularly on our young

women.

Oh, yeah.

Compared to our young men is very different. And

I...most parents are wildly uneducated, they might have a

general sense of like, "Oh, they're in their phones haha",

but they don't understand or they underestimate the emotional

impact

For sure.

that that can have. So that's what I would recommend

is for just all parents to be aware of and watch out for is

the in the influence of 24/7 social media.

Yeah.

24/7 it's like self judgments open all the time. You

can see what everyone else is doing and see all the things

that you're missing out on. You have all there's so much

pressure that's baked into having to maintain that so you

don't get to come home and just turn off.

Right?

You come home and you have to turn back on. You

got to be there and be present. There's is such a strong

influence that it's really negatively impacting all of our

mental--

For sure

for a variety of reasons.

I feel like that's a whole podcast topic in itself,

you know, about, you know, cell phones and electronics and just

the pervalence of that with kids.

Yeah.

You know, personally, my being a parent,

I've had to struggle with that as well and really set

boundaries there. So it's a big topic for sure

Yeah. So we'll can jump into that next time. But I

think, again, for parents to be willing, able, and willing to go

wherever they need to go to meet their kid. It. It's, we also

know that suicide something that many adolescents struggle with

thoughts, and not every thought turns into a behavior. And so

it's important for parents to remember, my child told me this.

That's an awesome thing. I am so...you should go to bed that

night, feeling great that your child disclosed this really

scary, vulnerable thing to you. You might also go to bed feeling

awful that they're in that place,

Yeah,

but wouldn't you rather know it?

Open communication.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that's important, for sure. Awesome.

Well, thanks so much for your time today.

Yeah, great. Great to be here.

Yeah, definitely, definitely gave us some

actionable items as parents on what to look out for, what to

do. You know, how to be more aware just of suicide, in

general. And so I think that was really helpful for me as a

parent, and hopefully for everybody else. Just wanted to

thank you guys for joining us today. And also, please make

sure you subscribe to our Roadmap to Joy podcasts, and

also follow us on all of our social media. Thanks so much,

Jake. Appreciate you.