Dozens of suicide attempts by New Jersey kids as young as 10 years old

Source: NJ101.com
As we mark Suicide Prevention Awareness month, you might be shocked to learn that New Jersey children as young as 10 years of age have attempted to kill themselves by overdosing on pills this year.
The state’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) reports in 2014, the most recent year data is available, 80 young people, between the ages of 10 and 24, took their own lives. That’s a rate of 4.6 per 100,000.
DCF statistics also show that hanging, strangulation, and suffocation were the most common means of suicide among females and males, ages 10 to 24 in New Jersey during 2014, but swallowing poison or overdosing on medication is another alternative.

“We’re noticing younger and younger children are harming themselves and they are taking all kinds of medications or chemicals in an attempt to do this,” said Dr. Bruce Ruck, managing director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center, according to calls received by the center in the past few months,

Four 10 year-olds, seven 11-year-olds, 17 12-year-olds, more than 50 13-year-olds and 90 14-year-olds in New Jersey have attempted suicide.

“The numbers are just staggering,” Ruck said, adding that since there is no requirement to report a suicide attempt to the Poison Center, it’s probably just the tip of the iceberg. “That’s what’s very, very scary. It’s something that’s really concerning to us,” he said.
According to George Scott, a resource coordinator at the Traumatic Loss Coalition of New Jersey, there are several factors that can greatly increase the likelihood of kids thinking about suicide and then taking their own lives.
“It’s domestic violence, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, mental health issues in the home, parents who separate or divorce, people who go to jail,” he said. “Those circumstances in a kid’s life, as they get older, really begin to sabotage their own mental health and their own emotional security.”
He noted these risk factors put kids at high risk for drug or alcohol use, sometimes for self injury, and sometimes suicidal behavior. If parents who are concerned about the behavior of their child and feel they may be at risk, Scott recommends they go for a psychiatric screening, or maybe even go to a hospital ER.

Parents should take swift action and keep the New Jersey Poison Control Center hotline number — 800-222-1222 — close by.

“We’re doing everything we can to alert the public about the dangers their kids may be facing,” Dr. Bruce Rusk says.