Guest Blog – "Every day is worth living"
I had the amazing fortune to receive this from Christopher Burgess this morning. Not only am I very lucky to have this piece from him to share with you, I would also like to make this the "unofficial" announcement that he has joined SocialSmarts' Board of Advisors. This is compelling and I encourage you to read and share with anyone who is concerned with the lives of our children.
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Do you ever delve into a stack of statistics and just find yourself mesmerized by the data, data that shocks your inner core? I had that happen to me recently as I was doing some fact checking surrounding instances of children committing suicide, specifically children who were bullied into suicide by others (both adults and children). I concluded, we lose too many precious children to "bullyicide."
According to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) a person dies of suicide about every 15 minutes or approximately 96 people take their own life each day. Sadly, for every person who succeeds, there have been between 8 and 25 failed attempts. That math works out to approximately 800 to 2400 attempted suicides in the United States each day.
Looking solely at the numbers for youth between the ages of 5 and 19 we see that right around age 10, suicide moves up to the third leading cause of death (See table 1). Sadly, according to the NSPL, the suicide rate amongst young people has more than doubled over the past two decades.
Rank
Ages 5-9
Ages 10-14
Ages 15-19
1
Unintentional Injury
1,072
Unintentional Injury
1,343
Unintentional Injury
6,616
2
Malignant Neoplasms
485
Malignant Neoplasms
515
Homicide
2,076
3
Congenital Anomalies
196
Suicide
270
Suicide
1,613
4
Homicide
121
Homicide
220
Malignant Neoplasms
731
5
Heart Disease
106
Congenital Anomalies
200
Heart Disease
389
Table 1: Leading Cause of Death of Children
Digging a bit deeper into the available information, I wanted to know where, geographically, suicides were occurring. I was startled. No state is exempt. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, based on 2007 data (the most recent), the top ten states are: Alaska, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, West Virginia, Arizona, Oregon and Kentucky based on the number of suicides per 100,000 of population. (See table two)
I then started digging to see if the statistics would tell me how many of these were the result of bullying? My digging found that in 2010, I was able to confirm 30 cases of suicide which the family, friends, or authorities attributed to bullying. The age of the children ranged from 9-19 years of age (9-1, 10-0, 11-2, 12-2, 13-3, 14-4, 15-6, 16-2, 17-5, 18-2 and 19-3). I also found that the vast majority of these suicides were at the first and last thirds of the traditional school year (16 suicides Sep-Nov and 10 suicides Mar-May). Perhaps this is coincidence how the frequency of bullycide coincides with the academic school year. (For additional reading see: Bullycide, the end result of cyberbullying and Bullycide: My Time Has Come So Now I'm Gone )
I think you would agree that given the alignment between school year and children being bullied into suicide that an individual investment in educating and making all concerned aware of the realities is warranted.
Allow me to call you to action:
Encourage your children to accept who they are, and be all they can be with the capabilities given to them.
Direct our young on appropriate use of the Internet as a tool of collaboration, knowledge sharing and commerce, and not as a tool of hate.
Make it your business to know and understand the many ways in which your child is engaging online and communicating – Smartphone, laptop, Xbox or Wii and where: your house, your neighbors, the library, etc. Then monitor this activity. I've often said, it is not espionage to know who and what your child is being exposed to online or via any other communications medium.
Teach your young how to cope when overwhelmed.
Ensure your child understands mistakes are universal, and unless it stops the sun from rising in the morn, you and they can work through the error.
Show your child how to report and confront bullying and call it out as wrong. Show them how to do this in a non-confrontational, but direct manner. To be a silent witness is to endorse the action.
If we are able to collectively work together, we can save a life, we can save many lives and in doing so we will demonstrate to the children, every day is worth living.
Rank
State (2006 rank)
Number of Suicides
Population
Rate
1
Alaska (3)
149
681,111
21.8
2
Montana (2)
196
956,624
20.5
3
New Mexico (5)
401
1,964,402
20.4
4
Wyoming (1)
101
523,252
19.3
5
Nevada (4)
471
2,554,344
18.4
6
Colorado (9)
811
4,842,770
16.7
7
West Virginia (12)
300
1,809,836
16.6
8
Arizona (6T)
1,016
6,353,421
16.0
9
Oregon (8)
594
3,735,549
15.9
10
Kentucky (13)
649
4,236,308
15.3
11
Idaho (10)
223
1,496,145
14.9
11
North Dakota (15)
95
637,904
14.9
13
Oklahoma (11)
531
3,608,123
14.7
14
Maine (27T)
191
1,315,398
14.5
15
Utah (16)
378
2,668,925
14.3
15
Vermont (21T)
89
620,748
14.3
17
Arkansas (20)
402
2,830,557
14.2
17
Florida (19)
2,587
18,199,526
14.2
19
Kansas (17)
382
2,777,382
13.8
20
Missouri (18)
808
5,878,399
13.7
20
Tennessee (14)
844
6,149,116
13.7
22
Mississippi (36T)
396
2,921,030
13.6
23
Washington (23)
865
6,449,511
13.4
24
Wisconsin (27T)
729
5,598,893
13.0
25
Alabama (24)
592
4,626,595
12.8
25
South Dakota (6T)
102
795,689
12.8
27
Indiana (21T)
790
6,335,862
12.5
28
Louisiana (29T)
522
4,373,310
12.2
29
New Hampshire (31T)
158
1,312,256
12.0
29
South Carolina (26)
530
4,404,914
12.0
31
North Carolina (25)
1,077
9,041,594
11.9
32
Pennsylvania (34T)
1,441
12,419,930
11.6
33
Virginia (31T)
880
7,698,775
11.4
34
Ohio (29T)
1,295
11,477,641
11.3
35
Michigan (34T)
1,131
10,049,790
11.2
36
Delaware (39)
95
861,953
11.0
36
Minnesota (38)
572
5,182,360
11.0
38
Iowa (36T)
322
2,983,360
10.8
39
Georgia (41)
997
9,523,297
10.4
39
Hawaii (42)
133
1,277,356
10.4
41
Nebraska (31T)
181
1,769,473
10.2
41
Texas (40)
2,433
23,843,432
10.2
43
California (43)
3,602
36,377,534
9.9
44
Maryland (44)
518
5,618,899
9.2
45
Rhode Island (45)
96
1,053,136
9.1
46
Illinois (47)
1,108
12,825,809
8.6
47
Massachusetts (48)
516
6,467,915
8.0
48
Connecticut (46)
271
3,489,868
7.7
49
New York (49)
1,396
19,429,316
7.2
50
New Jersey (50)
596
8,653,126
6.9
51
District of Columbia (51)
36
587,868
6.1
Total
34,598
301,290,332
11.5
Table 2: National Center for Health Statistics for the year 2007.
——
Christopher Burgess (@burgessct) is a humanitarian focused on hunger, slavery, world health and the online safety of our young and elderly. He serves as the Senior Security Advisor to a Fortune 100 company and previously served as a senior national security executive for more than 30 years. In addition to the United States, he has lived and worked in South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Europe, and Latin America where he acquired a deep understanding of the people, cultures, and societal issues which we face today. Christopher is also a regular contributor to The Huffington Post where he writes on online safety issues and his own blogs: BurgessCT.com and Veritate et Virtute . He is the co-author of "Secrets Stolen, Fortune Lost, Preventing Intellectual Property Theft and Economic Espionage in the 21st Century." Christopher can be contacted at: Christopher@burgessct.com
Filed under: Bullying and School Violence Tagged: bullycide, bullying, children, Christopher Burgess, cyber bullying, education, family, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, suicide
