Spotting the Warning Signs and Risk Factors of Suicide
Suicide has no one, singular cause. The factors that influence suicide are numerous and diverse. Two different cases may have no overlap in their motivation and contributing elements. Remaining vigilant in preventing suicide requires that one be aware of many factors that may overlap, intertwine and hide amongst others. If you should notice any of the following contributing factors or any other risk factors of a suicidal person, seek professional help with the situation and contact suicide prevention resources.
Social and Physical Isolation
- People considering suicide often isolate themselves and withdraw from activities, family and friends. They may feel that their presence is a burden on others, or they might simply lack the energy and motivation to socialize as a result of severe depression, which is often associated with suicide.
Behavior and Communication of Suicidal Feelings
- Pay attention to how the person talks. It may be obvious statements about wanting to kill oneself, but they may also give more subtle indicators. Someone considering suicide is thinking about their own death incessantly. Do their words and actions indicate their anticipation of their own finality? Are they giving away prized possessions? Behaving recklessly or lashing out with mood swings? Or contacting relations to say goodbye?
Accessing Means of Suicide
- Those thinking of suicide are consequently considering a means of ending their life. They may look up methods of suicide on the internet and purchase lethal weapons or potentially lethal drugs.
Emotional Distress and Mood Swings
- One may expect a person in a suicidal state to feel depressed, and it is true that depression commonly accompanies suicide. However, the suicidal state can manifest many different moods and behaviors. Humiliation and shame can be powerful indicators of suicidal thoughts and demonstrate the significant influence of social factors. Anger and agitation may stem from anxiety and deepen the negative mindset of the suicidal individual.
Mental and Physical Health Problems
- A suicidal state may also be brought on by diagnosed medical issues. Serious, chronic pain can severely impact a person’s mental health and place them at risk of suicide. Mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder have been tied to cases of suicide. Like other mental illnesses, a family history of suicide is another significant risk factor. Previous suicide attempts are another strong risk factor. Successfully overcoming a suicidal state does not mean that person will not be at risk again. Serious brain trauma and injury is another element of risk for suicide.
Stress and Crisis in Everyday Life
- Stressful events or prolonged periods of stress can bring about or worsen a suicidal state. Financial problems, long-term unemployment or continued harassment are examples of stress factors that have a gradual negative impact. Significant life transitions, loss, divorce, or even another person’s suicide are more abruptcrises that may severely worsen feelings of hopelessness and despair.
If someone you know is experiencing any of these signs, don’t hesitate to call for help. Here’s where to find help:
- Help Network of Northeast Ohio https://www.helpnetworkneo.org/
- Alta 24/7 at 330.793.2487. Learning the warning signs can save a life.
Back to School Tips for Mental Health
When your child has a fever, it’s easy to know they need help. Whether it’s treating the fever with Tylenol or taking them to the doctor, treating something that is apparent is easy. But how do you know when your child is dealing with mental health issues.
Much like physical health, mental health needs to be treated in the same way. Mental health needs to be given the same thought and attention you would a physical ailment. It’s also important to know when to seek the help of professionals like those at Alta Behavioral Health.
Half of all mental health disorders begin by age 14 and 75% begin by age 24. Early identification and intervention are key to keeping a child’s mental wellbeing, currently and in the future. With school starting all over the country, so is school related stress. But how do you know if their stress is something that will ease as they get back into their school schedule or something that is going to intensify as the year progresses? A little bit if attention goes a long way.
Naturally, you know your child and you know what’s “normal”. If your child shows any of the following symptoms for more than a few weeks it might be time to talk to them about mental health:
*Problems with focusing, memory or thinking
*Loss of appetite or overeating
*Changes in sleep patterns
*Feelings of sadness, emptiness or hopelessness
*Not being able to do school work
*Loss of interest in things they used to like doing
Sometimes these symptoms can be treated at home. Talking to your child on a regular basis and setting that precedent may help them learn to deal with these issues on their own. When you listen to them attentively, thoughtfully and non-judgmentally your child will learn that it’s perfectly natural to have these feelings. In fact, having an outlet to talk to someone can lead to a more resilient child.
Sometimes these Much like physical conditions, you have to know the signs of when it’s time to seek professional help immediately. If your child is experiencing any of the following call Altal immediately at 330-793-2487:
*Having thoughts of or plans to kill or hurt themselves or others
*Having sudden personality changes
*Being overly suspicious or fearful
*Hearing voices of seeing things that no one else is
*Sudden and drastic decline in schoolwork
Mental health issues are more common than you think. Being able to identify them and receive the help you need right away is essential. For almost 50 years, Alta has been serving the behavioral health needs of children and their families of the Valley. If you think your child is experiencing mental health issues, call today at 330-793-2487.
Benefits of Gardening on Mental Health in Children and Adolescents
One day, I was out getting groceries with my children. As we were in the grocery store checkout line, we noticed a torrential downpour had started outside.
After checking out, umbrella-less and raincoat-less, we sprinted outside to pack the groceries into the car, getting drenched in the process. In the middle of packing the car, my 8-year-old son turned excitedly to me and exclaimed, “I am so happy because our plants are going to grow with all this rain!” Beaming from ear to ear with an overflowing sense of responsibility, my son looked so proud of his garden.
At Alta Behavioral Healthcare, we understand how important it is to surround our adolescents with opportunities for both responsibility and accomplishment. We view a garden as a perfect chance to educate and teach life skills to our youths.
Here are some of the things our adolescents have said about our garden:
- “It gives me time away with my friends.”
- “I’ve made friends here.”
- “I get to relax and have fun.”
- “I learned to know what it is like to have fun without a phone.”
- “I can talk through my problems with others and we figure things out.”
- “I’ve learned how to garden!”
- “I can cook and can. I made eggplant parmesan today.”
We use our Therapeutic Garden Program to instill positive mental health techniques in our adolescents.
Working the garden four days a week, our teens are able to make new friends and learn more about each other. Each student is able to practice social skills in an environment that accepts mistakes and redirects them towards positive, rightful actions. Our staff provides guidance, not necessarily the correct answer, when facilitating disputes between students. We do our best to foster healthy relationships and positive communication.
We also use our Therapeutic Garden Program to instill hard work and determination in our students. Each day we work on the garden, each student is given a tangible, achievable task to complete. With the practice of positive reinforcement, each student can go home with a sense of accomplishment and responsibility.
In our program, each student vows to follow the “Full Value Contract”. By committing to this contract, each student is promising to protect themselves, other and their environment.
In a time where schools no longer teach things like industrial arts or home economics, gardening helps teach many of those long forgotten skills. Using this garden as a “Technology Free Zone”, our teens can detach from their phones and tablets and escape all of the noise and chaos of the social world. While originally this was scary for some, they have found it rather enjoyable. Instead of doing things like texting or tweeting, they are able to work with their hands, share stories, and enjoy each other’s company.
Our teens also like to brag that they can now survive a zombie apocalypse with the new gardening skills that they have learned.
Therapeutic Gardening is not something we invented. The use of gardening to positively affect the mental health of our youth has been well studied and widely used for over a century.
Studies show that Therapeutic Gardening benefits adolescents through connecting them with nature, social interaction, learning new skills, and giving them a sense of independence and control. Additional studies indicate that viewing natural scenes such as gardens evoke positive feelings, improved self-esteem, increased attention and interest in activities, development of accessible environmental coping skills, blocking and reducing stress and stressful thoughts, and the reducing of negative emotions.
Our Therapeutic Garden Program continues to be a fantastic vehicle to teach our students the life skills and positive mental health techniques that they need.
Sarah E. Macovitz MSSA, LSW
Requiring Schools to Teach Students About Mental Health
How Parents Fighting Affects Kids’ Mental Health
This article was adapted from one that appears on the VeryWellFamily website. The full article offers more details and is well worth reading.
Studies show parents fighting affects children’s mental health in several ways. Physical altercations, insults, and tactics such as “the silent treatment,” are just a few of the toxic interactions that are likely to create some emotional damage to a child in the long run.
There’s research to suggest that a child as young as 6 months old can be negatively affected by harsh parental arguments. But it’s not just young kids who are affected by parents fighting – other studies show young adults, up to age 19, can be sensitive to conflicts in their parents’ marriage.
Researchers believe high-conflict marriages take a toll on a child’s mental health for several reasons:
The Importance of Children’s Mental Health
From time to time we like to take a step back and look at the big picture of what we’re all about here at Alta Behavioral Healthcare, and why we do what we do.
Our mission is to care for the mental health of the children, adolescents and young adults who are our clients. We found a very good summation of why this work is so important recently from the KidsMentalHealth.org website. The entire article is well worth reading; here are some highlights:
Children’s mental health is without a doubt the most important aspect of any child’s social and cognitive development.
There are a myriad of factors that can impact a child’s mental health status, both positively and negatively. Many children…have a difficult time coping with their emotions. These children will usually make excellent candidates for mental health programs.
Some children may also be born with mental health issues. These issues are a product of nature rather than nurture, so the child may have a more difficult time dealing with his or her emotional state. Many children just naturally feel depressed or have anxiety issues. When these issues are not dealt with in the proper fashion, the children tend to have lower self-esteem and they struggle in the educational environment.
Studies have shown that these children, if left untreated by a mental health professional, will likely to grow up and repeat these same behaviors with their children. However, when these children are properly treated they can learn how to live a more promising life. They can overcome many of the issues that affect them without their consent. These children can live happy and productive lives that are filled with love, harmony and a great mental health status.
Keeping Kids on the Path to Mental Health
A column in the Fort Wayne, Indiana Journal-Gazette caught our eye recently.
Columnist Helen Huser Nill, who is a mother of three and aunt to 37 nieces and nephews, notes how quickly things are changing in our society and the repercussions on our teens and young adults.
She writes “Our children are being squeezed harder and harder by society.…We are unknowingly allowing society, companies and universities to increase demands, heighten fear, raise distractions, steal unscheduled time and sleep, and reduce time with family and friends for our teens and young adults.”
“As parents we want the best for our children,” she continues. “It’s easy for us to get caught up in waves of popular societal ways and not consider the long-term effects when making decisions that could affect our children’s mental health.”
She goes on to recommend some things parents can do to help children and teens be mentally healthy:
- Creating daily phone-free and computer-free dinner time.
- Allowing for face-to-face time with your child, just being together.
- Educating ourselves and our teens/young adults on signs of anxiety, depression and other mental health illnesses and issues. (Signs in children differ from those of adults.)
- Ensuring teens have unscheduled time to play.
- Making sure teens get enough sleep, with no phones in the bedroom at night.
- Encouraging face-to-face social time with friends — phones off.
- Encouraging adequate exercise and a healthy diet.
- Scheduling an appointment for a mental health checkup/assessment if concerned about a child’s mental health.
The column is worth reading in full. You can find it here.
How to Keep Your Active Toddler Busy
Toddlers require at least three hours of physical activity throughout the day since it is crucial for their physical, emotional and social development. There are many reasons for parents to encourage their toddler to be active. For example, regular activity strengthens kids’ cardiovascular systems, improves coordination and movement control, encourages positive self-esteem and lengthens their attention spans.
As many parents learn, the toddler years can be exhausting. As a child transitions from baby age to toddler-hood, he or she thrives on new experiences and curiosity. But it can be arduous for parents to keep their toddler occupied longer than a few minutes.
Luckily, there are some easy methods parents can use to encourage physical activity while helping to manage the “busyness” and unpredictability that can sometimes result.
This article from babygaga.com collects ten of the most effective methods. It’s a great resource for parents of little ones who seem to always be “on the go.”
Caution Urged Over Social Media Use in Young Children
Parents are being warned they could be damaging toddlers’ mental health by allowing them to access social media from the age of two.
A new report from charity Barnado’s has raised concerns about potential exposure to inappropriate content and also how use of social media may affect the communication skills of young children. Although the research was conducted in the UK, it has universal application.
More than 60 per cent of professionals working with vulnerable children in the past six months said they were worried about under-five use of social media and other websites. The charity’s frontline staff expressed alarm that parents were handing iPads and phones over to toddlers to “keep them quiet,” something most parents would no doubt admit to. But this has led to fears about their safety.
Half of service practitioners responding said they had worked with children aged five to 10 who had been exposed to unsuitable or harmful materials online, and more than one third said children in that age group had been victims of cyberbullying.
The story about this report contains more detailed information, as well as links to further research on the effects of too much screen time (which includes TV and computers as well as mobile devices) on young children. Read it at this link.
Source: Yahoo News
Overweight Kids Who Are Teased Gain Even More Weight
Being a kid is tough enough, but it’s even more difficult if that child happens to be overweight. In a world obsessed with looking Insta-perfect even at grade-school age, any child who doesn’t fit that norm is often subjected to endless teasing and bullying — often leading to long-lasting body image issues and eating disorders.
Now a new study published in the journal Pediatric Obesity has found that children who are teased and bullied about their weight could suffer long-term effects as a result of that teasing. The study looked at 110 children and young teens who were either overweight or at risk for becoming overweight. The study followed up with the subjects anywhere from 1 to 15 years later and found that those who reported being teased about their weight had gained the most.
In the first follow-up visit, 62% of those involved in the study who were overweight had reported being teased at least once, while 21% of those who were deemed at risk of becoming overweight stating they had been teased, NPR reports. “There’s this school of thought that says [weight-based] teasing might have a motivating effect on youth,” says study author Natasha Schvey, assistant professor of medical and clinical psychology at the Uniformed Services University. “This study shows that that’s not only not true, but that teasing might increase weight gain over time.”
Despite whether they were overweight or not when they began the study, those who reported being teased about their weight gained more than those who weren’t. The numbers are significant too, with those who were teased about their weight seeing a 33% greater gain in Body-Mass Index (BMI) and a 91% greater gain in fat mass per year compared with peers who reported no teasing.
Although Schvey says the study is simply observational, “we can say weight-based teasing was significantly linked with weight gain over time.” Rebecca Puhl, deputy director for the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at the University of Connecticut, told NPR that studies like this are important because it shows how common this sort of teasing is at such a young age. “What [this] is telling us is that we need to do a better job protecting adolescents from weight-based teasing,” she says.
Puhl said that we need to address how everyone talks to children that are overweight —not just children but adults and healthcare professionals too — as well as teach kids how to cope when they do face teasing and bullying comments. “Clinicians and pediatricians need to be paying attention to this issue,” Puhl says.
Source: moms.com
Helping Your Child Build Healthy Self-Esteem
When children feel good about themselves, they are happy, they cooperate with others, they make friends easily and they are more likely to cooperate with adults and other children.
Factors that influence a child’s positive self-esteem and get them thinking good things about themselves are:
- receiving praise, affection and attention from their parents
- having their achievements recognized
- having clear and consistent limits
- receiving discipline that reinforces those limits
Here are some tips for you to help your child develop healthy self-esteem:
- Create a safe, predictable environment at home by having routines before and after school and for bedtime.
- Have clear household rules, and consequences if those rules are broken.
- Encourage your child to express their ideas and help make decisions.
- Help your child set goals and recognize their achievements.
- Encourage laughter.
For more information on the importance of helping your child have a healthy self-esteem, visit https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/self-esteem.html
New Online Mental and Behavioral Health Resources Available for Educators
A Collection of Mental and Behavioral Health Online Resources provides a foundational source of information about online mental health, social-emotional and behavioral health resources. These resources can be shared by school personnel and mental health professionals with children, adolescents and their families who are coping with mental health and behavioral health issues.
This compendium includes a general section that highlights national organizations, each having a vision and mission to provide information and support for individuals with mental illnesses and their families. In addition to the general section, the compendium includes sections for each of the following mental health and behavioral health concerns:
- Anxiety Disorders
- Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
- Autism
- Bipolar Disorder
- Bullying (in general and of LGBT students)
- Dating Violence
- Depression
- Eating Disorders
- Human Trafficking
- Sexual Assault
- Substance Use and Abuse
- Suicide
- Self-Harm/Non-Suicidal Self-Injury
- Trauma
A Collection of Mental and Behavioral Health Online Resources is a joint project of Project AWARE Ohio, the Ohio Mental Health Network for School Success and the Miami University School-Based Center for Mental Health Programs. It can be downloaded at this link.
Study: Childhood Bullying Increases Risk of Adult Mental Health Issues
It may seem intuitive already, but recent studies have proven a stark reality: a child who is bullied in school is more likely to suffer from mental health and related problems as an adult.
The study was carried out by researchers from Britain’s Lancaster University and presented at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference at the University of Warwick.
Co-author Emma Goodman said “Being bullied causes detrimental effects on children’s lives not just in the short-term but for many years after. These are more pronounced among pupils who experience persistent bullying, or violent types of bullying.”
Specifically, the study found that being bullied in school increases the extent of mental health problems at age 25 by 40 per cent. In addition, bullying has a negative impact for adults in the areas of unemployment, income and ill-health.
Further details about the study can be found in an article published online by The Health Site.
Books Can Help Your Child Understand Emotional and Learning Challenges
Parents are always looking for as many resources as possible to help their kids cope with emotional, behavioral and learning challenges.
One such resource that can be very valuable is books.
The Child Mind Institute has compiled a list of 44 books that address mental health and learning disorders and other common challenges kids face, such as dealing with painful experiences and coping with strong emotions.
Included are books for kids up to age 12 — from picture books to be read with preschoolers to chapter books for independent reading by older children. Child Mind Institute clinicians read them all and picked the best in each category, based on how helpful they found them.
For titles and descriptions of these books, see this article.
Less Screen Time Means Healthier Kids, Families
Smartphones and iPads have made it easy to entertain small children, and teens are hooked on their cellphones.
Since so many children and young adults are spending many hours a day staring at screens, we need to ask: What are they missing? What is it doing to their brains? Will too much screen time harm them?
An internet search for “harmful effects of too much screen time” results in pages of links that leave no doubt that there’s a serious problem. If anyone needs personal verification, all they have to do is listen to the experiences of classroom teachers, pediatricians and child psychologists in regard to how many children’s behaviors have been affected by the overuse of technology.
The good news is there are things parents can do about it. While appreciating the positive aspects of the internet, computers and other new technologies, parents and other caregivers can take advantage of the excellent information available that tells them how to eliminate the dangers of too much exposure.
Encouraging children to play outside, banning electronics during meals and before bedtime, strictly limiting screen time, speaking to and looking at one another more often, doing physical activities together, playing board games as a family — all of those help. It also helps to make available blocks, cardboard boxes and other items so young children can use them to build things. Having art and writing supplies available so they can create art and express themselves helps, too.
And let them be bored. Boredom is the impetus children need to come up with ideas of their own, to enjoy quiet time, to think and to solve their own problems.
Many parents also need to limit their own time on smartphones, especially when their children are present. Parents who cherish the time they have with their children will never regret it.