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Parents of high schoolers gather to discuss suicide
By Leigh Ann Maze
It was a simple exercise to gain experience in saying the words that are so hard to say, but the experience caused nervous giggles throughout the Saratoga High School library on May 30, as 100 parents turned to each other and asked, "Are you thinking about killing yourself?"
"Those words are hard to get your lips around, aren't they?" asked Sheila Everett, one of five panelists at the SHS parent meeting entitled, 'Helping Our Students Deal With Mental Health Issues.'
The panelists asked the parents to pose the question to their neighbors, to practice talking about the tough and often silent issue of suicide with their teenage children.
The issue has been uncomfortably thrust to the forefront at SHS, as the school community tries to confront their grief in the wake of the suicide of SHS senior Lancy Chiu, who died on May 6.
Parent Annette Woolsey, SUSD board member Cindy Ruby, SHS PTSA co-presidents Ching-Li Chang and Bette Cruikshank and SHS student advisor Gail Wasserman organized the meeting.
"The staff and students received professional assistance, but the parents were missing that link," Woolsey said about the meeting's purpose. "The parents didn't know all of the facts, what had been said, or how to talk to their kids about it."
One of the five panelists, who volunteered time to open up the dialogue with the SHS parents about suicide and teenagers, was Jacki Saunders. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in working with adolescents and children. Saunders served as a student counseling center intern at SHS in the past and still comes to the SHS campus once every year to host the annual senior day. During senior day, she talks to the students about coping with stress after high school, including discussion about depression and suicide. The next senior day at SHS will be held on June 8.
Sheila Everett and Oona Cadorin also served as panelists. Everett and Cadorin are counselors with the Centre for Living with Dying, whose first contact with the SHS community was on May 8, when they provided support for students, staff and faculty at the SHS campus as they learned of Chiu's death. Everett has also volunteered for many years for the Suicide and Crisis Hotline. Wasserman and SHS principal Kevin Skelly also spoke at the meeting.
Saunders opened the discussion with important background information, such as the stigmas and myths surrounding suicide and depression. She told parents how to recognize the symptoms of depression in teenagers, such as feelings of sadness and emptiness, lower grades, loss of interest in regular activities and drastic changes in appetite or sleeping habits. She also talked about the warning signs of suicide, such as depression and withdrawal, recklessness or a marked change in behavior, abuse of alcohol or drugs and thoughts and comments about death and dying.
Saunders said the best thing a parent can do is to talk openly and create a support system for their child if they think something might be wrong.
Cadorin shared with the parents what it was like at SHS on May 8. "I'm still shaking from going into the classrooms and seeing the empty chair where Lancy should be sitting," Cadorin said. "There are a lot of incredible, brave kids here who were talking about how they felt."
Cadorin stressed to the parents that the best thing they can do to help their children deal with their grief is to be honest, to listen and to provide an opportunity for their children to question. "Don't be afraid to say the word suicide," she said.
Everett agreed that being open with teenagers is key, even if the first 100 times a parent asks how the teenager is feeling, he or she doesn't want to talk.
There was not a dry eye in the library as Skelly shared his thoughts with the parents on the issue.
"As a high school, I believe that one of the most important things we can do is get kids through the tough years of adolescence in one piece. In this case we didn't do it," Skelly said. "We all need to struggle as human beings and ask ourselves, how do we look out for these kids that we love so much?"
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
