Multiple Studies Show Teen Suicide Rates Explode During School Year
While the annoying cultural cliche suggests that our years in school should be the best times of our lives, for many of us it is actually a traumatizing experience that has lifelong consequences for our mental health. After graduation, many of us are left to work through issues such as anxiety, depression, low-self esteem, dependence on authority, need for external validation and a long list of mental health problems that can lead to drug and alcohol abuse, antisocial behavior, or worse. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people over the age of 15, and the third-leading cause for those over 10.
According to statistics from the CDC, over the past 10 years, the suicide rate for White children and teens between the ages of 10 and 17 was up 70 percent, and up 77 percent among African-American children. Since mental health is such a serious problem among teens, it is time to start examining the place where they spend the vast majority of their time. Peter Gray of Psychology Today and The Foundation for Economic Education has pointed out that suicide rates among teens actually increase during the school year, citing numerous studies. During extensive research on the subject, Gray found this correlation in data that was recorded of children’s emergency psychiatric visits at Connecticut Children’s Mental Center in Hartford.
The data shows an obvious decline in teenage psychiatric visits during the summer months, which is somewhat of a statistical anomaly considering the fact that students have more time to themselves during the summer, and emergency visits, in general, rise drastically during the summer, according to the CDC. Between the years of 2011 and 2013, Connecticut Children’s Mental Center would typically have anywhere between roughly 120 to 180 psychiatric visits per month when school was in sessions, but dropped below 70 in the middle of the summer, and stayed around 100 in the months surrounding summer.
More recently, in 2015, a study led by psychiatrist Collin Lueck from the University of Southern California found similar results when looking through the books of a large pediatric emergency mental health center in Los Angeles. In this study, the data was a bit more specific, and researchers were able to compare emergency visits on weeks when school was in session, against weeks where students were on break.
In this data, researchers found that the rates of emergency visits were 118 percent higher on weeks when school was in session. Just this year, another study led by Dr. Gregory Plemmons of Vanderbilt University confirmed these previous findings. “When we looked at hospitalizations for suicidal ideation and suicidal encounters over the last decade, essentially 2008 to 2015, we found that the rates doubled among children that were hospitalized for suicidal thoughts or activity,” he told NBC.
With the extreme stress and pressure that children are put through in school, it should be obvious that it is going to have an adverse effect on their mental health.
Although this data was briefly mentioned in the NBC report where Plemmons was interviewed, the piece seemed to miss the root cause of this problem, and instead blamed social media. While it is true that there are many problems with social media, and that many teenage hardships are exacerbated by these websites, it is also true that school has been driving children to suicide since well before Steve Jobs invented the iPhone.
In 2011, Professors Benjamin Hansen and Matthew Lang published a study that examined rates of suicide, accidents, and homicides among American teenagers dating all the way back to the 1980s. The data spanned between 1980 and 2004 and found that suicide rates were always much higher during the school year.
This study also recorded the rates for girls and boys separately, showing that the suicide rate for boys rose 95 percent during the school year, but only 33 percent for girls, which seems to go along with the generalization that girls tend to adjust to school better than boys do. This blatantly obvious correlation continues to be ignored because it brings into question one of the primary sacred cows of American culture—formal public education.
It is a widely held belief that people would not be able to read, write or understand basic math without 12 years of formal government education, but this idea is false, especially in the age of the internet. Most of the information that children receive in public school is obsolete by the time they graduate, and they often learn things that are counter-productive or flat out wrong. Government schools as an institution were not created to empower the lower and middle class but were in fact designed to keep us in our place.
This is not hyperbole or conspiracy theory, but verifiable history that can be traced back to the Prussian model of education, which is the basis of modern schooling. Early promoters of the Prussian model like Edward Thorndike, John Dewey, Horace Mann and the Rockefeller family were blatant in their writings that they wanted to create institutions that would turn the unwashed masses into obedient workers and soldiers. According to the language of their own programs, they are grooming the youth of the country for a tightly controlled “worker bee” lifestyle.
This system was being designed specifically to create factory workers and crush creativity. This all makes sense when you notice that awards are not given out in school for creativity and self-expression, but for perfect attendance and obedience.
This is the same reason why the school bells between classes are reminiscent of the early factory bells and whistles that would separate shifts in the sweatshops of the industrial age. The overall curriculum and structure in public schools have remained the same from the original Prussian model, all the way to present day.
Critical thinking is not only suppressed but it is almost completely condemned within school walls. Students who exhibit signs of creativity are often times singled out by teachers as troublemakers because they are typically more resistant to authority and more independent. Sometimes when a student’s creativity cannot be broken they are forced to take mind-numbing psychoactive drugs like Ritalin or Adderall. Repetitious training exercises are also hidden within the basic structure of a school day. In America, children are forced to “pledge allegiance” to the flag every single day, this exercise is designed to implant nationalistic tendencies into the conscious mind of the student.
Demanding students to walk in a straight line or ask before going to the bathroom is a more subtle form of training, however, it also sets them up to “fall in line” when they graduate school and move on with their lives.
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My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion and Manifesto of the Free Humans
I just won a 3-year-long battle with cancer, and will be working to help others through my experience, if you wish to contribute to my medical bills, consider subscribing to my podcast on Patreon.
I am proud to say our two youngest boys will never darken the doorway of a government school. Great article Mr. Good Vibes!
You are doing a great thing for your boys!
This is real education: Keep this Book of Instruction always on your lips; think on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. - Joshua 1:8
Thank you for the kind words. May GOD bless you & yours.
It is not easy for teachers, either. Respect for the teaching profession has experienced a downward spiral during the last 15 years or so at least in Finland where I live.
When I was in school I did not mind the learning part. What I did not like was being forced spend the whole day with a large group of other kids some of whom were real assholes I would not have spent one minute with voluntarily. In an institutional setting like that you learn few social skills applicable in real life. You learn suppressing your personality and adapting to peer pressure. There is nothing useful to that. I hated school and I would've loved studying everything on my own. I would probably have been able to graduate from the compulsory nine years of comprehensive school many years in ahead of schedule.
This is actually what many homeschooling and unschooling parents are discovering. When directing their children in a supportive environment that fosters creativity and engagement, their children seem to do much better. It's primarily anecdotal, but I've heard too many of these stories from people I trust and people I know personally who took that route to discount it.
My own experience exactly.
Somehow, somewhere, somebody needs to help teens learn to be objective with their thinking. All those young, creative minds were wasted on being concerned about their own feelings.
This way of thinking was not done without influence.
in order to sell people things you first have to make them feel bad about themselves
That's partially true... but there are a lot more reasons people buy things. People buy things because of daily needs, to reach goals, as rewards for their accomplishments and more.
I strongly agree with the premise of this post. That schools are damaging to the mental health of people. That's an important message of warning that needs to be shared.
Right, people buy things they want and need, but if you want to sell someone your brand of whatever it is then you need to make them feel like theirs is not fulfilling them and is the source of their unhappiness and that if they buy your brand they will finally be happy.
Adolescence is a difficult time, spring is the most popular season for suicides. Of course school has both social and academic pressures. If suicides have doubled in the last decade it does not make sense to blame schools for that though, they haven't really changed during that time. One thing that did change during that time which is hugely influential on kids is the adoption of social media and smart phones so maybe it would make more sense to see if that is the cause of this trend.
Good response. I think that smart phones and social media are definitely a factor. It's easier for people to think they are "connected" while actually becoming more isolated. They also compare their not perfect lives with the perception of perfection that people highlight when they share on social media. We usually share the best of things on social media, things that make our lives look better. Which might provoke a sense of inadequacy in others who view that and compare themselves to it.
I was a school teacher and I saw as kids went from not having phones to having phones. It's a nightmare from a teachers perspective to try to compete with and deal with those phones. On the one hand after smart phones all kids can read now, there used to be kids who couldn't read in 8th grade but now they all can to some degree, on the other hand it makes them grow up faster and get into weird shit earlier and makes it harder for them to get out of it. You have someone who might decide they are an emo or furry or juggolo at age 12 and make their social media persona all about that and then all that shit is still there when they are 19 and ready to go to college. Kids used to get to reinvent themselves when they started highschool and college and after, now that is a lot harder.
Kids used to be able to go home after school and the bullying would stop but now they are on their phones harassing each other 24/7, school doesn't cause that. We see the same thing in adults with social media.
the goverment need to focus more on medical check up for mental health
Would you like the government to decide if you are mentally healthy or not?
heck no
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but this all happened after he invented the iPhone:
Schooling didn't change or double in intensity during that period did it?
Summer is awesome, why would any kid commit suicide in summer?
Suicide rates are seasonal and most suicides occur in spring, when school happens to be in session.
Which would indicate that social media exacerbates an already pre-existing issue. When you look at public schooling objectively, it is a system that, by design, stamps out creativity and promotes conformity and obedience.
Creativity is overrated. Most jobs don't require it. A lot of public schooling is a relic of the industrial age. That where we are seeing some disconnect. A lot of silly old brick buildings with teachers and books, very anachronistic. In the next decade or so all public schools will go online. School will just be an app on children's devices. Then no more school shootings, school bus crashes, physical fights or diddling to worry about. No more pencils no more books no more teachers dirty looks. And then kids will be free to upset and isolate themselves and be harassed and bullied online full time until some of them kill themselves. Most importantly it will be much cheaper for school districts and generate better test scores than brick and mortar schools.
Right. Because critical thought really doesn't help anyone.
Your criticisms of public schools are well-placed, as is your criticism of social media and its impact. However, social media exacerbates pre-existing problems. It's not the cause of them.
That's funny I said "creativity" and then you said "critical thought". In some cases social media exacerbates existing problems, in other cases it creates new ones.
It's funny, right? As though I were implying there was a very strong correlation between the two, and fostering one has the added effect of encouraging the other, and vice versa.
Yes, social media does create new problems. In this case, this isn't something new.
For most jobs you don't want the person to be creative at all, do you want someone to be creative cleaning a toilet? Driving a bus? "Look at me everyone I'm driving with my feet!" Framing a house? Do you want the TSA agent with their hand down your pants to get creative?
What's new is the sudden increase in the suicide rate.
You do want someone who can critically think and problem solve, which, as I pointed out, bears a very strong correlation to creativity. Why are you limiting yourself?
Yes. Increase. Meaning it was a pre-existing problem, which has been exacerbated. Social media apps and smartphones offer a new and novel way to arrive at the destination, but the behaviors and situations that give rise to teen suicide aren't much changed. They're simply amplified.
I can tell you this: going to government schools did little to help me achieve long-term growth or even foster creativity. I know plenty of people who have felt the same way, and this article and the statistics within bear that out. The only time I was ever more depressed than in school was in the Army.
Extremely important message here, but hold on...
”Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people over the age of 15”
What?! Is there a mistake here? How can this be? This would make suicide absolutely rampant, which doesn’t seem to correspond to my experience in the slightest. Unless the leading cause of death is being defined extremely broadly I don’t see how this can be so. Not asserting anything, just asking...
In Utah It is the number one cause of death of kids ...
http://kutv.com/news/local/utah-youth-suicide-now-leading-cause-of-death-for-utah-kids-ages-11-17
That I can understand, because the scope is limited by age and location, but all people over the age of 15 is incredibly broad. It's got to be a typo or something.
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