The National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center says that Teen Suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers this means that almost two thousand teenagers kill themselves each year. And depression is one of the leading causes of Teen Suicide. The same Resource Center states that over ninety percent of Teen Suicide victims have a mental disorder, such as depression and/or a history of alcohol and drug abuse. Nowadays depression is considered by the National Institute of Mental Health to be a real and treatable medical illness, but what exactly drives a teen to commit suicide, what is so bad or wrong in their lives that they see ending it as the only alternative? There are risk factors that are involved in Teen Suicide and these include peer pressure, low self-esteem, stress, dysfunctional family, and access to drugs and guns.

Teen Suicide has and is becoming a global pandemic. Teenagers have become entrenched in an ideology doled out by those who seek to control, persuade and coerce teenagers. And at the same time, communication between parent and child has become, in most situation non-existent. All of these factors leave the teen to fend for himself in areas where he or she is too young to understand and too eager to become engaged in.

However not all teenagers have talked or even thought about suicide, but the statistics are really frightening. But who or what is responsible for this outbreak? Many would agree that parents should take a stronger role in their child’s life from the outset, because a teenager doesn’t suddenly choose to die unless something terribly wrong has pushed him or her over the edge. It is the duty of the adults around them not to allow this to happen.

Teenagers must be given a reason to live and to love and to become needed and useful members of the society, and this is where the parents, friend and educators must come into play.