Did A 6 Year Old Commit Suicide ?

Rather similar to what happened to a grade school friend of mine. I believe he was 7 when he got into an argument with his mother over his Nintendo (he wanted to sell it, she wanted to save it for his younger brother) and got sent to his room. He was found by his brother later that evening, hanging with a shoelace around his neck from the top bunk in their room. His death was ruled an accident with the story being that he wanted to play a joke on his mother to make her feel guilty, but ended up slipping on the lower bunk’s bedding and hitting a nerve in his neck that rendered him unconscious. As he was alone, however… who knows?

I think suicide in children may not be so wildly uncommon, but it isn’t recognized because it does often get termed an accident. It may be “accidental” in that they don’t understand the ramifications of dying, but surely the children intend to do whatever it is that kills them?

Anyone ever read “Jude the Obscure” by Thomas Hardy?

Child suicide is disturbing but not unheard of or new.

Of course a small child has the mental capacity to commit suicide, or sadness, or laughter or beauty.

If a six-year old can be one hell of a guitar player, or a two-year old can be a dang good drummer (youtube is littered with similar amazing kids) what kind of an idiot do you have to be to _not_ see that thsoe labeled as a “small child” are nothing more than people with small bodies?

My best friend’s brother committed suicide at age 9 by hanging himself with his robe belt from the closet clothes hanger. “Roberto” had always been a huge risk taker (climbing out onto the roof from his bedroom window at age 6) and had some emotional problems to boot.

Could a child psychiatrist helped him? Perhaps. As Cosmo noted, even in the mid-80s there was not necessarily good help easily available for a lower middle class family.

Zaulankris, stick to your ideals and don’t be a helicopter parent. So many unpleasant children become unpleasant adults out of that parenting style. I had clear, specific rules and my 18 and 22 year old have never had an issue with our family rules vs. another family’s. They only become an issue if you allow it.

Just last year my mother mentioned the tragedy of “Roberto’s” “accidental” death. I told her it was a suicide, something that didn’t escape “Roberto’s” elder sister or myself. As Katiekatiekatie mentioned, it can often get ruled as “accidental” either to spare feelings or because the coroner doesn’t believe the mental capacity exists.

My thoughts go out to the family on their loss, and to everyone else who has mentioned losing a child to suicide. I still wonder what “Roberto” would be like as an adult…

As someone studying to be a child psychologist, I know that child suicide exists and is tragic.

I remember my professor once telling me about a depressed child he was working with. The child wanted to commit suicide. The child insisted that they understood what death meant, that if they died they were never coming back. After many sessions, my professor happened to mention that when you die, you don’t have any more birthdays. The child suddenly said “What?! I don’t come back on my birthdays? What about Christmas?”

Children absolutely have the ability to kill themselves (and other things/people, too). But the truth is that they do not understand the consequences. That part of their brain has not yet developed (and doesn’t until you are in your early twenties) and they cannot fathom what death really means.

I agree with CYBret, I do not come to Neatorama to see sad depressing things that I could find on CNN. I come here to relax and have fun, now I’m depressed. Please no more stories like this.

Children on psychiatric drugs are killing themselves. It happened in Florida and it will hapen over and over until people see the truth about the link between psychiatric drugs and suicide/mass killings…

I agree with reo… In the future, maybe less about the actual specific stories on the neatorama summary and more about the idea to get you thinking rather than tell a sad story

HOW PRECOCIOUS!

Gauldar, that’s what my mom did for me (explain things), and I’ve always been grateful for it.

Belts should be banned. If it only saves one child, it will be worth it.

If I found my kids in this situation I would f*cking scream vomit on every surface of their room. This is the most f*cked up thing I’ve ever heard. there’s no way a six-year old knows what suicide is, and if they do then that’s an epic fail on the parents part.

Children most certainly can commit suicide, and be suicidal. I was a suicidal six-year-old. I was an early learner with everything, reading before I was two years old, and since they refused putting me into a higher grade, they just made me do different and harder work in my own class, and tutor the other students. I didn’t get along with my peers at all. For a period of about two and a half years, a lot of family members kept dying, and we were at the funeral home at least once a month. Towards the middle of my first grade year, my 18 month old cousin died of brain cancer, my 19-year-old cousin committed suicide, and my great Aunt Lulu, who I was closer to than anybody in the world, finally died after a couple of years of major suffering from cancer. I couldn’t take it, and I would write stories and poems about me committing suicide. My teacher found some of these writings and notified my family, and I had to go into therapy for it. I had a plan that wouldn’t have worked, but it was that I would bury myself in my stuffed animals and suffocate. Or that I would crawl into my bunny’s cage, get into the corner, and suffocate. I had these feelings for about a year after I started therapy. I always had feelings of alienation growing up, and still do. When I was thirteen, I made two attempts to commit suicide. These were called “cries for help”, but I knew what I was doing, and I wanted to die. You don’t take an entire 150 pill bottle of Tylenol PM that you bought that morning for a specific purpose, and just want Mom and Dad to find you and “help” you.

Anyway, this story is very tragic, it doesn’t sound like an accident, but I’d like to hear about how the child was acting around this time. If she was sad, crying a lot, angry, etc.

I’ve wanted to kill myself since i was 6, im 18 , I still would love to die,

and 6 year olds don’t kill themselves just because mommy said no, i was fully aware of what i was doing and remember it clear as day, i wanted to die because my parents were drug addicts, my father was a drunk, I got made fun of everyday, and I got to listen to my best friends screams as he was beaten by his foster parents everyday

its not selfish to want to kill yourself, its selfish that myou people whining don’t take in the fact that, that person could STILL be getting raped and beaten and tortured, physically OR emotionally every day, you’re selfishfor wanting to control them, its sad when a person goes, but
saying thats selfish is saying you want to prevent them from THEIR happyness, how selfish of you is that?

the reason I was here and read this article is because I am a concerned parent of a 7 year old girl.

She has had mental health issues since the age of 3 and has been seen by many professionals and had several invasive tests to rule out more physical causes of her behaviour (yes we’re canadian, hence the spelling). We have multiple diagnoses from 3 doctors. Currently she is being treated primarily Bipolar Disorder among others.

We are constantly trying to keep this child stabilized. As she grows, she needs changes to her medications and it can be a struggle to find the right dose/combinations. Recently her fluoxotine (Prozac) was increased—-since this increase she has been talking a lot about killing and wanting to die (black box warning on ssri’s). Most of this is at school in her “pretend life” where she hates being because she also has separation anxiety and would be much happier at home with mom.

Children absolutely can have real feelings about wanting to die and it shouldn’t be underestimated. Don’t ever think for one second that it’s always a sign of bad parenting. We love our child to pieces and have been trying since the age of 3 to help her. Sometimes there is a lot more to the story than a child being sent to their room or abuse etc. I hope that I never have to bury my child—-that would be totally devastating and my heart goes out to these parents.

Child suicide is a real thing. Isolation, depression, abuse, etc, are all reasons for suicide, and what people don’t understand is that children feel the same way as an adult, they just don’t handle their emotion as well. I should know, I try to kill myself when I was eight. I was a lonely, too intelligent, sexually abused, anti-social, bookworm, “nerd-ish” (with my peers), “stupid” (with my cousins), out-casted/ignored little girl.
Because I couldn’t handle being ignored by everyone, (yes, my parents ignored me, but not by choice. I knew they loved me, they still do, but I rarely saw my dad because of his job, and my mom was always busy doing something.) which included my sister, cousins, and anyone in my age group, and being abused by someone I thought I trusted, I was going to “sleep forever.” I was going to take a load of sleeping pills (my mom’s an insomniac. So am I), but fate has it that the day I was going to kill myself was the day my abuser stopped and my mom ran out of pills. Not sure what to do, I failed in my plans, and so far, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying life.
So, yes, child suicide is possible. It’s always been possible, and will always be possible as long as children are abused, hurt, or just put through too much stress or emotion overload. That’s why parents must love their children, nurture them, but also discipline them with a gentle, but stern hand. Condolence to the parents. No one should be put through that sort of pain and grief.