“Suiside”

There is a growing and serious concern among parents and educators about the widespread suicides or attempts at suicide among young children today. The culprit to this morbid trend can be traced to various factors, but perhaps we can focus on two important areas: technology and the family.

Technology is rapidly advancing at an imaginable pace. It is a positive manifestation of man’s innate capacity and desire to improve his material condition and broaden his knowledge about everything in the cosmos. St. John Paul II, however, warns us that the development in technology cannot be isolated from the sapiential dimension, that is, the “search for the ultimate and overarching meaning of life.”

This sapiential dimension “is all the more necessary today, because the immense expansion of humanity’s technological capability demands a renewal and sharpened sense of ultimate values. If this technology is not ordered to something greater than a merely utilitarian end, then it could soon prove inhuman and even become a potential destroyer of the human race. (Encyclical, Fides et ratio, no. 81)”

The words of the encyclical are prophetic when we see how the young’s identities and realities are both deeply enmeshed within the Internet. Jen Twenge in her book iGen reveals that although “teens are physically safer than ever, yet they are more mentally vulnerable.” She reveals that iGeners “who spend more than three hours a day on electronic devices are 35% more likely to have at least one suicide risk factor.”

This lifestyle shift (e.g. eating and sleeping disorders due to prolonged nocturnal activities, etc.) and content (e.g. media that may foment vices and a negative-unrealistic outlook of life, etc.) that the young are exposed to in the Internet can become a volatile mixture that they are still unable to handle psychologically and socially.

Family, on the other hand, is experiencing a crisis in cradling the proper ambience to educate children to engage life –spiritually and professional– for the future. Parents are also too materially oriented and thus find it harder to personally journey with their children’s emotional and social development.

The greater burden to the solution still lies upon parents. They have to daily strive to instill in their children a sense of discipline that will forge realistic life convictions that are based on real-life relationships and goals. This will aid young minds to make real choices in life –both in its highs and lows– with authentic consequences.

Choices they will make in favor of life, instead of against it. Choices to accept its joys and travails. Choices to embrace others entirely with their perfections and imperfections. Real choices, that can best be learned within a family, where one sees how his ‘side’ uniquely matters for everyone around him.