Help Your Child Support A Friend

When your child’s friend is suffering from anxiety or depression, it’s hard to know how to equip them to offer support. Deborah Herd asks the experts for advice

MY DAUGHTER, 13, came home from school recently extremely worried about one of her classmates. The girl had told her friends that she was going to kill herself that evening.

I had no idea how to respond. There’s no section in parenting books on what to do when your teenager’s friend is suicidal. Should I contact the girl’s mother? The school? Another parent?

The truth is I did none of the above, but only because I was aware of the girl’s mental-health issues and knew that her parents and teachers were too. (And I can report that the learner turned up at school the next day.)

What the situation did raise was my concern about how to support my daughter. How do I help her process such a scary scenario? What should I counsel her to say to a classmate who says she hates her life and is going to end it? How do I help her be a good friend?

HURTING GENERATION

Sadly, the situation I found myself in and, more importantly, my daughter’s and her friend’s predicament is far from unusual. Our children’s generation is hurting like no other. According to The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (Sadag), teenagers are the age group most at risk for depression and suicide, with suicide the second leading – and fastest-growing – cause of death.

At my son’s high school, there have been two suicides in four years and three more at nearby schools. When I was discussing this article with a friend, she told me about a teenager who just days earlier had to grab another boy as he attempted to throw himself from the first-floor window of their high-school boarding house.

Each of these tragedies happened in affluent parts of Cape Town, but it is the same in communities around the world – rich and poor, black and white. The incidence of anxiety, depression and suicide among young people is a global pandemic.