“A cry of pain. Until the last second before it is consummated, it is a cry for help.” This is how he describes in their report published this month SOS Children’s Villages teen suicide, the leading cause of death in young people and adolescents between 12 and 29 years oldaccording to CIBERSAM data.
On the one hand, we are talking about something avoidable, since “most deaths by suicide can be prevented“says the report.
“Parents are not prepared to prevent this, nor do we know how to act. We also do not know how to see what happens to our children. We do not know if he is locked in his room because he has had a problem with his friends or with his girlfriend and he is already will happen or if it is something else,” he says, on the other hand, to Public Carlos Sotosurvivor and coordinator of the Mutual Self-Help Group of the Princesa81 Association.
Even so, There are some basic guidelines that everyone – parents, teachers and loved ones – They should be impressed when dealing with people who show signs of suffering, especially if they are teenagers.
Keys to active listening
“Don’t go in to criticize or blame. Limit ourselves to listening to what you are willing to tell. Be close.” These are some of the tips he gives us Juan José Escuderosuicide survivor and president of the Sendas Association for Suicide Prevention and Mental Health.
“You can tell him: It seems like you’re having a bad time. But without pressuring him. It is very important not to judge and do not make comments like You are dramatizing either Come on, if you have everything…, he emphasizes.
It is also not something that can be done in a hurry. Escudero tells us about the “90 minute rule”a time that you can spend in silence by his side, without getting nervous, without doing anything else, showing that There is nothing more important in the world for you than listening to him.waiting for it to open. “Teenagers find it difficult to talk, especially with their parental or authority figures.”
Active listening is, as it says Public Juan José Escudero“the vaccine against suicidal thinking.” And a practice in which parents, teachers and, also, the students themselves should be trained. In his words, It consists of implying that you understand that he is having a bad time. Repeat what the other person tells you. Let your own concepts flow.
A dialogue without judgment
“never tell I would do this, I would do that. This should never be done at a time when they are opening up, it is totally prohibited because they can understand that you are not listening to them. You’ll do it another time. But when they are talking to you, you must avoid any criticism, any you should…”, he highlights.
What’s more, he advises doing it “even if it’s unpleasant. Maybe he’ll talk to you about things that you don’t like. Maybe he’ll tell you that he really enjoys drugs, that he wants to die, that he’s going to drop out of school, or something else. You, be quiet. Remember you can’t judge, only listen.. You will look for solutions and propose advice later, at another time.”
“They close themselves in because they don’t find that active listening. They need to understand that you really want to listen to them,” he says. Carlos Sotowhich provides training courses for mental health professionals on the topic.
“You must understand that The problem your son has is the biggest thing in the world for him. Do not take away weight with phrases like it’s nonsense, it will pass, what you have to do is…etc. Those futures don’t exist for him.”
“Sometimes, adults do not understand that the world changes and we question everything that happens. We have a different education,” Soto reminds us. “If we try to judge their behavior and help them from what we learned when we were young, they will think: But what is this? What world do you live in…?. We would lose credibility for them.”
On the other hand, in delicate situations, it is advisable to measure the assessments we make. “Criticism from a parent or a very close family member is like bombs for a teenager who is going through a difficult situation,” warns Escudero.
What do we want to teach our young people?
As parents, do we know how to forgive and ask for forgiveness? Do we know how to dialogue? Do we scream when we are angry…? These are some of the questions that can give us clues about the kind of example we are giving.
“Learning to regulate emotions is an interactive process in which we all participate. Thus, you learn which is the model of responses that most protects you, the ones that make you grow the most. You work by example on a day-to-day basis,” Escudero points out.
In the same way, Carlos Soto believes that “if we never tell our problems to our children, How do we want them to tell us? What we can do is share with them what worries us and, later, make comments like talking about it has been very good for me either when you count things they seem to lose weight“. These are some tricks that he proposes to encourage them to open up. “Once they start, they will always do it,” he says.
Specialized professional help
In addition to that “we are worried, we love you” that the family must always transmit to the adolescent, The boy or girl will need specialized professional help. “The person with suicidal thoughts will have to do interesting internal work. Psychological help is very important, because you find yourself immersed in an emotional situation that you do not know how to handle,” he points out. Public the suicide survivor Salvador Rios.
In this sense, “for a therapist, the important thing is not to convince the patient not to kill himself. It would be too simple an approach, ineffective for a problem that is too complex,” he tells Public the specialized psychiatrist Alejandro Rocamoraprofessor at the Center for Humanization of Health.
“What you have to achieve is, based on the situation you are in, transform it. Therefore, rather than asking “why do you want to commit suicide”, which contributes nothing, you have to ask “why do you want to commit suicide?” “This is a question that It goes to the deep feeling of the person, not so much to the circumstance and allows the therapist to provide means to overcome their suffering,” says this expert, who worked for more than 40 years as a volunteer on the Esperanza telephone line.
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