Third of three parts.
Part 1 and
Part 2
A counselor at JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano faces
a gathering of somber students and asks if they knew any of the teens
who recently took their lives.
A half-dozen hands immediately rise. After a pause, more hands poke up.
“I knew Kyle,” one boy quietly volunteers. “He always
seemed super happy. I never would have guessed.”
In new series of sessions about suicide at JSerra — as well as at
many other schools — little by little kids open up.
One student talks about 13-year-old Emma Pangelinan who lived in Mission
Viejo. Another teen says he knew Patrick Turner, a 16-year-old who lived
in Corona del Mar. A girl mentions two girls in a nearby town. A boy asks
about another boy who died.
It used to be that kids in high school knew one, maybe two kids who committed
suicide. Back then, there wasn’t the reach of social media and methods
to kill yourself weren’t just a Google search away.
With the Internet as well as Instagram and Snapchat “likes”
creating round-the-clock races for online popularity — who sleeps
anymore? — high school today is not your mother’s high school.
It’s not even the high school that millennials experienced.
Kids are cutting and killing themselves in increasing numbers and experts
are only beginning to understand why — and more importantly how
to stem the tide of tragedy.
Several weeks ago, the Orange County chapter of the American Academy of
Pediatrics went so far as to make a public statement about what experts
call a suicide cluster.
In a world where going public about teen suicide once was verboten, the
academy’s statement may seem reckless. But that was the 20th century
when relatively few kids heard about a teenager’s suicide.
In the digital age, friendships cross school boundaries and teens know
far more than even the saviest parents realize.
Courageous parents who have lost children to suicide, therapists, even
news information companies are lifting the veil in an effort to build
awareness and reduce increasing teen suicide rates.
“The face of suicide is changing,” the pediatrics chapter warns.
“The rate of suicide is increasing in Orange County and all teenagers
are at risk, including our high achieving students, athletes, and artists.”
This month, three hospitals in Orange County launched after-school ASPIRE
programs to help teens and parents cope and communicate. Like JSerra,
other middle and high schools are revamping and beefing up suicide counseling programs.
These programs are less about old-school depression and addiction than
they are about unrealistic Internet-induced expectations that perfection
is actually attainable.
“Perfectionism among performance driven teens in academics, the arts,
and athletics,” the pediatrics academy declares, “is a critical
factor to identifying and intervening with the new face of suicide.
“Research confirms that current generations of young adults put more
pressure on themselves than generations before them. This self-imposed
pressure to be perfect is a known risk factor.”
Understand, getting into college doesn’t start with the PSAT as it
once did. Pressure for getting into college starts as early as eighth
grade, a time when the biggest worry used to be ninth grade.
Being a popular jock doesn’t help. Successful student-athletes such
as Emma, a softball phenom, commit suicide. Patrick Turner, a sophomore,
played both baseball and football.
‘Best’ vs. ‘right’
Experts point out the uptick in teen suicide started a few years after
the launch of Instagram and Snapchat. They blame battles for digital “likes”
and Internet-induced stress over success on the field as well as in the
classroom.
In 2014, Madison Holleran, a University of Pennsylvania freshman track
star took her life. Around that time, a cluster of teens committed suicide
in Palo Alto. In January, Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski
took his life.
“We handed the most powerful tool known to man and gave it to children
for them to play with and explore,” says Don Grant, chairman of
the American Psychological Association Device Management Committee. “Would
you hand kids power tools and not expect something to happen?”
Grant, a Los Angeles-based psychologist, calls the Internet a “digital
‘Lord of the Flies.’” He adds, “There’s
always going to be a Ralph, there’s always going to be a Piggy,”
but the Internet amplifies and expands social hierarchies far beyond anything
previous generations have faced.
For example, a girl swipes her smartphone and sees other girls she knows
from school at the beach. How do you think she feels?
“Kids are sitting home alone, disenfranchised and disconnected,”
Grant says. “It’s very dark the way social currency is wielded.
They watch the Kardashians and don’t know how to respond.”
Pressure to get into college can be even worse.
“Every other kid in this population is so scared,” Grant explains.
“There’s no summer vacations. No down time.”
Parents and schools need to blow up the paradigm that a child has to get
into the best college, the psychologist says. “Expose the truth
about these myths.”
Other experts agree. The American Academy of Pediatrics cautions, “An
environment where success is so highly valued fuels this pressure on our teens.
“Intolerance for mistakes and weakness make high-achieving (students)
in academics, athletics, or the arts particularly vulnerable to social
isolation when their self-imposed perfectionist standards are not met.”
Instead of getting into the best school, the new concept is aiming for
the right school.
School counselors and psychologists suggest parents and counselors guide
students to a college that fits the student — or toward a vocation
that fits.
’13 Reasons Why’ binging
Standing before a screen listing depressive symptoms such as emptiness,
hopelessness and worthlessness, JSerra counselor and psychologist Courtney
Harkins reminds students that they can make a difference in others’ lives.
Being kind is high on the list. So is having a positive outlook.
Still, Harkins is careful to make clear it’s not the students’
responsibility to handle a potential suicide.
“You might be the rock,” Harkins cautions, “but it’s
not your burden to hold. Even if you’ve promised to not tell anyone,
you have to reach out. Tell school experts.”
Unfortunately, Harkins and other psychologists must swim against a tide
of popular movies and TV series.
The hugely popular Netflix teen suicide series “13 Reasons Why”
depicts counselors and administrators covering up for their school and
putting the priority on their own careers after a student kills herself.
For this series of columns, I watched nine of the 13 episodes. Then, I
had to walk away from the drama because it was so unrealistic, troubling
and depressing.
While some experts applaud the series for sparking discussions about what
some wrongly consider a taboo topic, most condemn “13 Reasons Why”
for being sensational.
The National Association of School Psychologists phrases it delicately,
warning that the Netflix series “powerful storytelling may lead
impressionable viewers to romanticize the choices made by the characters
and/or develop revenge fantasies.”
Some tips for tilting students away from suicide are startlingly simple.
At the JSerra session, visiting therapist Megan Ure notes there are different
types of mindsets.
One is the depressed brain saying, “I can’t do it.”
The other mindset is the healthy brain saying, “I’m going to
try.”
It may sound dumb and it’s not easy, but helping someone realize
that they are trapped in a victim mentality can go a long way.
A new conversation
Prerna Rao is clinical manager for the
ASPIRE program in Newport Beach and reports her team is seeing an increase in teens hurting
themselves. “It’s shocking about what’s happened in
such a short time,” she says.
“The biggest thing missing with teens is validation,” Rao offers.
“Teens have a lot going on emotionally and hormonally.”
Instead of building self-esteem, the social media plague of staged “happy”
photos creates the opposite of validation.
Daniel Patterson has worked in the trenches at public schools, first as
a teacher and then as an assistant principal. Now, he is a parenting and
teen life coach and reports that the idea of “tiger” parents
and teachers is more myth than reality.
Like other experts, he sees the real culprit as social media and notes
that because of Instagram and Snapchat, teens compare themselves to others
in real time 24 hours a day.
“It’s difficult to wrap your head around,” Patterson
says of the damage. “It creates a hidden pressure from underneath
that’s hard to articulate for the teenager.
“It takes the old term, ‘Keeping up with the Joneses,’
to a different level.”
To move forward, Patterson calls on adults to collectively work together
and fully acknowledge what social media is doing to teenagers. “Stop
dancing around trying to diminish the impact of digital communication
on these kids.”
Parents need to acquire cutting-edge information on teenage life, and they
need to learn the vocabulary of teens so they can communicate. “When
teens perceive you don’t know something, they maintain a buffer.”
It’s a buffer we all must break down — parents as well as teens.
Moreover, we need to change the conversation.
Sometimes old wisdom is new again. Legendary basketball coach John Wooden
once said, “Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection
is an impossibility.
“Do the best you can under the conditions that exist.”
To view the original
Orange County Register article, please click
here.
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Part 1: New Pressures for Perfection Contribute to Rise in Teen Suicide
Emma Pangelinan’s room embodies everything that is pure and good
about teenagers, yet the quiet in the air is so heavy it nearly brings
you to your knees.
Two rows of hard-earned gleaming softball and soccer trophies testify to
the past. A blue-and-gold UCLA pennant on the wall promises a wonderful future.
But the athletic, bright, always-helpful 13-year-old who slept in this
room, who grew up in this home of faith and family, is gone forever.
After a perfect day on a perfect Sunday blasting softballs, sharing jokes
with the girls on her travel team and window shopping with Dad, Emma disappeared
on the evening of Jan. 21 and killed herself.
No note, no warning, no “13 Reasons Why” voice tape as portrayed
on the recent Netflix suicide series.
Just the stop of a beating heart.
In the following three weeks in Orange County, at least three more teenagers
who appeared to excel ended their lives.
How many other teens have taken or tried to take their lives in Southern
California in the past few months is unknown. But what is known is that
smart, successful, gifted teens are committing suicide in increasing numbers,
and if certain things don’t change – and change quickly –
many more young lives will be snuffed out.
“We are definitely seeing an increase in self-harm,” reports
Dr. Michael Brant-Zawadzki, executive medical director of the Neurosciences Institute at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach. “Negative
behaviors have steadily started to increase.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports suicide has become
the third-leading cause of death for teens and that more than 4,600 young
people – ages 10 to 24 – are lost each year.
Additionally, 157,000 youths between the ages of 10 and 24 are treated
at emergency departments for self-inflicted injuries.
For many teens, suicide is no longer only about parents screaming at kids,
drug addiction or bullying.
The factors causing some of these suicides as well as thousands of attempts
are new, murky and very much 21st century.
They include lives lived in a digital world in which kids are measured
by Instagram and Snapchat “likes,” a sense of overwhelming
pressure coupled with fear of failure, and the belief that practice –
and enough Internet research – can make you perfect.
But, of course, perfection is unattainable and failure is guaranteed.
“It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the
brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades,” writes Jean
Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University and author
of “Generation Me.”
“The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect
of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions
to their mental health,” Twenge concludes. “These changes
have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every
type of household.”
Technology’s seismic shift
A hand-carved cross about 18 inches tall hangs above the mantle in Liza
and Louie Pangelinan’s home in Mission Viejo. Below, two votive
candles flicker. A rosary is draped over a small statue of Jesus Christ,
hands low and open. In the center, there is a photo of Emma. She is smiling
and appears to lean forward, eager for her next adventure.
The candles and the photo are new. The hanging cross is not. The rosary
is the same rosary that parents and extended relatives from Corona held
the night that Emma’s body was discovered.
But the seventh grader’s essence is best captured in a photo that
is nearly hidden. It shows Emma from the back when she was just 8 years
old. Already a budding athlete, her batting helmet is cocked just so and
she grasps the meat of the bat with one hand, barrel up and behind her.
Her stride exudes confidence, strength and grace – the very same
characteristics Emma exuded the day she killed herself.
Emma’s father, Louie Pangelinan, played high school football in Corona,
was a volunteer coach and allows that his daughter “made plays you
don’t see at the high school level, and she made them look easy.”
It’s a statement not of pride but of fact, and is difficult for Pangelinan
to volunteer. Exceptionally quiet and humble by nature, the longshoreman
paraphrases football great Walter Payton, “When you’re good
at something, you tell everyone. When you’re great at something,
they tell you.”
Kids, coaches, even parents told Emma she was great – because, well, she was.
At just about everything.
Emma earned straight As, excelled at art, whisked from kid softball to
club teams and then to travel teams. She played the tough job of catcher;
heck, she played any position needed.
But 2016 was a very tough year. One of the girls in the league was responsible
for her own death.
The coaches, however, understood the trauma and called in Casey Cooper,
sports psychologist. Cooper addressed the team as a whole and also took
on individuals. Emma was one.
Exceptionally shy, Emma came out of her shell under Cooper. Soon, she made
friends more easily.
After a series of sessions, the therapy ended. There was no indication
of depression. Just the opposite.
Recalling the day she got a text stating Emma had disappeared, the therapist
echoes Emma’s parents, “There were no red flags.”
Still, like other experts on teenage turmoil, Cooper sees red flags across
the nation.
The speed of technology, they agree, is moving faster than the ability
of young people to process the effects.
Consider that smartphones arrived in 2007. Instagram came online in October
2010, Snapchat a year later.
San Diego State’s Twenge dates the impact: “Rates of teen depression
and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011.”
Millennials grew up with PCs, moved on to laptops, gravitated to tablets
and came of age when smartphones hit the market. But their little brothers
and sisters practically grew up with smartphones.
The gap between millennials and their iGen siblings may be as little as
five years, yet it is as wide as the gap between the World War II generation
and baby boomers.
Few will admit it – many don’t even know it – but parents
might as well be on Mars when it comes to understanding the new world
of their teens.
“These kids are always on display,” Cooper points out. “You’re
always being evaluated based on the number of likes and comments.”
Reaching for perfection
In their living room, the Pangelinans offer a gracious platter of chips
and fresh-cut veggies. But during a discussion that lasts until sunset,
no one touches food.
When your youngest child dies by their own hand, eating is nearly impossible.
Living is hard enough.
Liza confesses she loves candy. Yet gift baskets of candy from friends
stack up on the dining table untouched. She confesses, “I can’t
taste them.”
Mom shakes her head at the memory of hiking with Emma a week before her
little girl’s death. Liza was shocked and frightened by the carcass
of a decaying deer and Emma, 5-foot-4 and strong, comforted her mother.
How could such a girl take her own life a week later?
Emma not only left her parents in mourning, she left behind an older brother
and sister who thought – no, knew – their little sister “was
the coolest.”
Still, Cooper and Emma’s parents allow the seventh grader was a perfectionist
who could be tough on herself.
“She would talk about an error and we would say, ‘But you made
10 great plays,’” Liza says. “Emma internalized a lot
of stuff.”
Emma wasn’t big on social media, Liza says. She adds, however, many
teens stage elaborate photos as if to prove they are having fun and post
them online in a race for digital popularity. When it’s deemed there’s
an insufficient number of “likes,” they take down the photo.
“These kids have a lot more pressure than we ever did growing up,”
Liza says. “There’s a lot we can’t relate to.”
After a long moment of silence, Liza allows, “Obviously there was
some level of depression. Emma conquered everything except her emotions.
“They were just too overwhelming.”
Dad reflects on all the long car rides he had with his youngest daughter.
Driving is difficult, he admits. It won’t be any easier come summer.
In July, Dad and Emma were going to drive to Colorado for a series of softball
games. Emma even made a playlist for the trip.
It’s still in her bedroom.
To view the original
Orange County Register article, please click
here.