Teen suicide was very rare in my father’s time. Back then, everybody in a family who was able-bodied had to work just to survive. Suicide was almost unheard of, as was the word “bipolar.”
Rather than merely sitting your kid down to have a talk about what may be bothering them, how about trying these proven remedies for bored and /or troubled children? Try giving your kids tasks and duties to perform on a regular basis. Today, kids spend too much time on computers and watching TV, giving them too much time dwelling and comparing themselves to others.
Limit them to no more than two hours a day maximum. That means a total of TV and/or computer use. If kept busy enough, most of our kids’ problems would melt away.
Remember the old adage that we learned as kids, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”
Ron Overman, West Valley City