Suicide prevention and shut-down kids, again

                                                     

 

Changing the narrative must include the shut-down child who cannot read

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September is Suicide Awareness Month. This year’s theme is “Changing the Narrative”: start the conversation instead of wrapping suicide in shame.

I read a LinkedIn post that took that theme seriously. The writer has lived with suicidal ideation, spoke about a family death by suicide, and argued that we should stop treating the subject as something dirty. The post cited a 2022 Cambridge study in which interviews with 29 families found elevated autistic traits in 41.4% of those who had died by suicide, and mentioned the recent death of Professor Jason Arday.

I agree the conversation has to come out of the shadows. I also want to add what I have been saying on this blog since 2018.

Please read:

Suicide prevention and shut down kids (21 September 2018) LINK

Suicidal tendencies (29 November 2019) LINK

 

A majority of the children I have taught who showed hopelessness or suicidal thinking were smart children who could not understand why they were unable to read while their classmates could. Their self-esteem was scraped away. Many misbehaved so they would not be called up to read and be made a fool of. One of my first students kept asking, “Uncle Luqman, do you think I am stupid?” He stopped only after he could read. Another, Xaviera, used baby talk as a defence. It faded as she began to read.

We hide suicide. We also hide the child who cannot read. Both silences produce shame.

The 2022 study is a warning that neurodivergent people are over-represented among those who die by suicide. It does not cancel what I have seen with children who cannot decode print. A 1997 study of adolescent suicide notes found that 89% showed spelling and handwriting problems similar to those of adolescents with learning disabilities. A Wake Forest study found that teenagers with reading problems were three times more likely than typical readers to consider or attempt suicide. In 2019 I also quoted Special Attention Project’s warning that unidentified dyslexia can drive children into depression and what they called “cognitive death.”

I am not a psychiatrist. I am a teacher who has sat with children who had already decided they were worthless because they could not do the one thing school demands all day: read.

A child does not need a media storm to feel that the world is hostile. He only needs a classroom in which he fails aloud, is laughed at, is labelled, and is sent out.

If we want to change the narrative, we should:

 

Teach the sounds of the letters correctly, from the beginning.

Stop treating the child who cannot read as a behaviour problem first.

Talk about suicidal thoughts without shame — and talk about reading failure without shame.

 

I have said for years that if we prevent children from shutting down by teaching phonemes correctly, we will need fewer prisons and fewer mental institutions. That is prevention, not an awareness-month slogan.

The narrative that needs changing is not only “people with suicidal thoughts should hide.” It is also “children who cannot read are defective.” Both stories cost lives.