7 ms·

Teenage suicide rates dropped during lockdown due to respite from bullying

54 points by _glsb 4y ago

jslql 4y ago
[flagged]
voisin 4y ago
Please someone tell me again how homeschooling doesn’t properly socialize children…
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- isthisthingon99 4y ago
  homeschooling doesn’t properly socialize children
  - kodyo 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - isthisthingon99 4y ago
      [flagged]
    - dang 4y ago
      You've been using HN primarily (exclusively?) for ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of which flavor you favor. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Moreover, you've been breaking the site guidelines in other ways too, such as with unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments, name-calling, and personal attacks. We ban accounts that do these things. I'm not going to ban you right now because your account has been around for a while and we haven't warned you before, but the pattern in your comment history is definitely not ok and we need you to fix this. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  The hardest thing home schooled kids have to deal with is communication with public school kids. Therefore, it's recommended that they speak slowly, and use monosyllabic words in the hope that most public school kids will be able to keep up and understand.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Adults bully, too, so you do need to learn to handle it. Delaying that learning experience likely has both costs and benefits.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > Adults bully, too, so you do need to learn to handle it. Eh, they do. But not nearly as frequently as children in my experience. I was tormented mercilessly in school, but I'm actually struggling to think of a single instance of bullying I've experienced as an adult. And I don't think that's because I "learnt to deal with it". I think it's partly because most bullies grow out of it, and partly because as an adult you're usually afforded the agency to leave situations where you're being bullied.
    - rofo1 4y ago
      > I think it's partly because most bullies grow out of it, and partly because as an adult you're usually afforded the agency to leave situations where you're being bullied. It is because you can defend yourself. That's all there is to it. If you can defend yourself, people will not mess with you. Parents that leave children into "schools" so they can get "bullied" and nobody protects them are committing cruelty of the highest order I can imagine.
      - voisin 4y ago
        > Parents that leave children into "schools" so they can get "bullied" and nobody protects them are committing cruelty of the highest order I can imagine. The grandparent poster here is saying that this bullying is a feature not a bug, and that the bullying prepares you for adulthood! I don’t buy any of it, but that’s the counterpoint to what you are saying.
    - harry8 4y ago
      In my experience as a school student there is very little you can do about it beyond making yourself a small target which comes at a fairly high cost. You can make it worse once it happens while being on the receiving end of a wildly hypocritical lecture about how the school "will not tolerate bullying". Standing up to organised group bullying is folly. As an adult you have many more cards to play than that and everyone knows it even if they don't know which cards you have or which of those you're willing to play; the doubt surrounding potential consequences for picking on you counts for something. Precisely none of that improvement in lived experience comes from "learning to deal with it" and "socialization" So that's my experience, others may differ.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Socializing children requires you to be around other children to play with, or get into conflict with. That's part of socializing. When you're homeschooling, it's much less likely you have a broad spectrum of other children to interact with, as when you go to an actual school.
  - voisin 4y ago
    On the contrary, the school system groups kids from the same neighbourhoods and the same age together. Some schools also by religion. Homeschooled kids tend to mix with a broader range of ages and geographic basis.
    - dathinab 4y ago
      > Homeschooled kids tend to mix with a broader range of ages and geographic basis. or with none or only other members of a religious cult and definitely not the kind of children the parent are biased against the idea that a homeschooling kid from e.g. a very conservative christian family will have a less segregated experience is just funny > same neighborhood one of many many more reasons why neighborhood segregation is a huge problem (independent of weather it's by ethnicity, religion or wealth) > same age one of the thinks some of the nordic countries did change (through their suicide rates are high, but that is more a problem with the geographic location, i.e. not getting much (or any) sun-light in winter).
      - dagw 4y ago
        their suicide rates are high, but that is more a problem with the geographic location, i.e. not getting much (or any) sun-light in winter). That is mostly a myth. While suicide rather in the Nordic countries are slightly above the European average they're not the highest in Europe and below the US. Also the correlation between suicide and not getting enough sun light is at best very weak. If you cluster suicide data on a pr county level in Sweden for example, you'll find a very high correlation with unemployment levels and negative population growth and no correlation with how far north you are.
- Paianni 4y ago
  If domestic relationships aren't good quality then social skills may be impaired regardless.
- fiftyfifty 4y ago
  A compromise is to just have smaller schools. I don’t know who came up with the idea to put over 1,000 teenagers together in a building everyday as so many public high schools do in the US, but there are plenty of studies that show it’s a terrible idea.
  - voisin 4y ago
    I assume it is for economic reasons. Unless property taxes shoot up, how would you support that?
- dathinab 4y ago
  Because if you don't interact with people you can't learn how to interact with people. And this include interacting with people you don't like or which aren't so nice (but just that, not bullies). The problem isn't schools. It's a bad treatment of social issues at schools (and in society) in many ways. I mean how messed up is the US that police presence at schools is normal in many areas (and I don't mean just guarding the gate but presence _in_ the schools).
- TaupeRanger 4y ago
  Please someone tell me again how they don't understand statistics. Suicide is still extremely rare even with schooling. Child abuse is actually more common in homeschool environments, which you apparently wish to ignore. It can be true that homeschooling doesn't properly socialize children AND that there's an astronomically small increased risk of suicide from school attendance.
  - voisin 4y ago
    > Child abuse is actually more common in homeschool environments Source?
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      Solid numbers (in either direction) are hard to find. Stuff like this is concerning: https://ctmirror.org/2018/04/26/child-advocate-finds-homeschooled-kids-subject-abuse-neglect/ https://ctmirror.org/2018/04/26/child-advocate-finds-homesch... > In a study of six public school districts, Eagan found that over three academic years, 36 percent of students withdrawn for homeschooling lived in families that had at least one prior accepted report for suspected abuse or neglect from the Department of Children and Families.
pvg 4y ago
105 comment thread 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34214244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34214244 And the same article yesterday ago with its proper title, couple of comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34346096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34346096
thaumasiotes 4y ago
HN headline does not reflect the actual headline ("Why did teenage suicides decline during America’s first covid-19 lockdowns?") It also makes a claim that the article wisely doesn't make. Compare the OP: > The paper concludes that in-person bullying is the likeliest explanation for the rise in suicides when schools reopened. No suggestion that any evidence was used in making that conclusion. The finding is that suicide rates dropped due to school closure.
- MobileVet 4y ago
  To this point, my buddy is a 20 year teacher. He says that the difference between bullying today and 30 years ago when we were in school is that then it stopped at 3 when we went home. Social media provides the ability for bullying to continue 24/7 and it does. It is a huge problem as text and posts go on and on late into the night. Being always on and connected is a scourge for youth trying to find themselves in a historically and biologically tough time.
  - headsoup 4y ago
    This would not support that suicides dropped though would it? Kids would be online more and likely face bullying continuation. Not that I disagree with it generally being a horrible scourge on childhood experience.
  - everdrive 4y ago
    If this is the case, wouldn't cyberbullying have increased during the pandemic since kids would have been on devices more often?
    - mgkimsal 4y ago
      If there’s no IRL activities to bully about, the bullies’ attention is likely drawn to other things more quickly.
- headsoup 4y ago
  I assume no consideration appears to be made for "children spend more time with family" and so gain the health benefits of such a thing. Modern society is way to busy downplaying the importance of foundationally secure emotional connections. Busy instead pushing 'independence' and outsourcing of childrens' time and affection for the sake of income.
hellothere1337 4y ago
The whole point of the modern school system is to train children to be obedient to social pressure and authority. Otherwise they get excluded and get bad grades. It's a kind of pavlovian conditioning to create docile worker drones. No wonder any intelligent human being would rather not go through this dehumanizing gauntlet that destroys both joy and curiosity.
michael1999 4y ago
The school-months and school-days are long known to have the highest rate of teen suicide. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/childrens-risk-of-suicide-increases-on-school-days/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/childrens-risk-of...
dandare 4y ago
Fun fact: boys are more likely to die as a result of suicide than as a result of an attack or stabbing, use of drugs, accidental poisoning, drowning, fall and any other kind of accident, except for traffic accidents, COMBINED. Parents should talk to boys about the danger of suicide much more that they talk about drugs and or drowning. Cause of death by age and gender, EU, 2010: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/HLTH_CD_ANR__custom_2802414/bookmark/table?lang=en&bookmarkId=d8aab007-8a00-46b1-b493-1b4b9c7c7261 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/HLTH_CD_ANR__...
- glandium 4y ago
  Also: boys are more likely to succeed than girls: there are vastly more suicide attempts from girls than boys, but more suicide deaths of boys than girls.
orwin 4y ago
Like i said in the older thread of the same article, bullying in my experience is negated by: community integration (small school in small towns are better in my experience, especially when everybody know your grandma), School/ysc 'admin' are good: basically if the 'chief' (don't know the English term, sorry) tell their team and professors to be attentive to bullying and respond/get involved with parents, you're golden, and great teachers who manage to involve their coworkers.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > School/ysc 'admin' are good: basically if the 'chief' (don't know the English term, sorry) The head of a school below the university level is called the 'principal'; the head of a university may be called a number of things. It looks like Harvard and Yale have 'presidents' while the University of California has 'chancellors'.

54 points by _glsb 4y ago

jslql 4y ago

[flagged]

voisin 4y ago

Please someone tell me again how homeschooling doesn’t properly socialize children…

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
isthisthingon99 4y ago
homeschooling doesn’t properly socialize children
- kodyo 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - isthisthingon99 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - dang 4y ago
    You've been using HN primarily (exclusively?) for ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of which flavor you favor. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Moreover, you've been breaking the site guidelines in other ways too, such as with unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments, name-calling, and personal attacks. We ban accounts that do these things. I'm not going to ban you right now because your account has been around for a while and we haven't warned you before, but the pattern in your comment history is definitely not ok and we need you to fix this. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
llanowarelves 4y ago
The hardest thing home schooled kids have to deal with is communication with public school kids. Therefore, it's recommended that they speak slowly, and use monosyllabic words in the hope that most public school kids will be able to keep up and understand.
ceejayoz 4y ago
Adults bully, too, so you do need to learn to handle it. Delaying that learning experience likely has both costs and benefits.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > Adults bully, too, so you do need to learn to handle it. Eh, they do. But not nearly as frequently as children in my experience. I was tormented mercilessly in school, but I'm actually struggling to think of a single instance of bullying I've experienced as an adult. And I don't think that's because I "learnt to deal with it". I think it's partly because most bullies grow out of it, and partly because as an adult you're usually afforded the agency to leave situations where you're being bullied.
  - rofo1 4y ago
    > I think it's partly because most bullies grow out of it, and partly because as an adult you're usually afforded the agency to leave situations where you're being bullied. It is because you can defend yourself. That's all there is to it. If you can defend yourself, people will not mess with you. Parents that leave children into "schools" so they can get "bullied" and nobody protects them are committing cruelty of the highest order I can imagine.
    - voisin 4y ago
      > Parents that leave children into "schools" so they can get "bullied" and nobody protects them are committing cruelty of the highest order I can imagine. The grandparent poster here is saying that this bullying is a feature not a bug, and that the bullying prepares you for adulthood! I don’t buy any of it, but that’s the counterpoint to what you are saying.
  - harry8 4y ago
    In my experience as a school student there is very little you can do about it beyond making yourself a small target which comes at a fairly high cost. You can make it worse once it happens while being on the receiving end of a wildly hypocritical lecture about how the school "will not tolerate bullying". Standing up to organised group bullying is folly. As an adult you have many more cards to play than that and everyone knows it even if they don't know which cards you have or which of those you're willing to play; the doubt surrounding potential consequences for picking on you counts for something. Precisely none of that improvement in lived experience comes from "learning to deal with it" and "socialization" So that's my experience, others may differ.
capableweb 4y ago
Socializing children requires you to be around other children to play with, or get into conflict with. That's part of socializing. When you're homeschooling, it's much less likely you have a broad spectrum of other children to interact with, as when you go to an actual school.
- voisin 4y ago
  On the contrary, the school system groups kids from the same neighbourhoods and the same age together. Some schools also by religion. Homeschooled kids tend to mix with a broader range of ages and geographic basis.
  - dathinab 4y ago
    > Homeschooled kids tend to mix with a broader range of ages and geographic basis. or with none or only other members of a religious cult and definitely not the kind of children the parent are biased against the idea that a homeschooling kid from e.g. a very conservative christian family will have a less segregated experience is just funny > same neighborhood one of many many more reasons why neighborhood segregation is a huge problem (independent of weather it's by ethnicity, religion or wealth) > same age one of the thinks some of the nordic countries did change (through their suicide rates are high, but that is more a problem with the geographic location, i.e. not getting much (or any) sun-light in winter).
    - dagw 4y ago
      their suicide rates are high, but that is more a problem with the geographic location, i.e. not getting much (or any) sun-light in winter). That is mostly a myth. While suicide rather in the Nordic countries are slightly above the European average they're not the highest in Europe and below the US. Also the correlation between suicide and not getting enough sun light is at best very weak. If you cluster suicide data on a pr county level in Sweden for example, you'll find a very high correlation with unemployment levels and negative population growth and no correlation with how far north you are.
Paianni 4y ago
If domestic relationships aren't good quality then social skills may be impaired regardless.
fiftyfifty 4y ago
A compromise is to just have smaller schools. I don’t know who came up with the idea to put over 1,000 teenagers together in a building everyday as so many public high schools do in the US, but there are plenty of studies that show it’s a terrible idea.
- voisin 4y ago
  I assume it is for economic reasons. Unless property taxes shoot up, how would you support that?
dathinab 4y ago
Because if you don't interact with people you can't learn how to interact with people. And this include interacting with people you don't like or which aren't so nice (but just that, not bullies). The problem isn't schools. It's a bad treatment of social issues at schools (and in society) in many ways. I mean how messed up is the US that police presence at schools is normal in many areas (and I don't mean just guarding the gate but presence _in_ the schools).
TaupeRanger 4y ago
Please someone tell me again how they don't understand statistics. Suicide is still extremely rare even with schooling. Child abuse is actually more common in homeschool environments, which you apparently wish to ignore. It can be true that homeschooling doesn't properly socialize children AND that there's an astronomically small increased risk of suicide from school attendance.
- voisin 4y ago
  > Child abuse is actually more common in homeschool environments Source?
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Solid numbers (in either direction) are hard to find. Stuff like this is concerning: https://ctmirror.org/2018/04/26/child-advocate-finds-homeschooled-kids-subject-abuse-neglect/ https://ctmirror.org/2018/04/26/child-advocate-finds-homesch... > In a study of six public school districts, Eagan found that over three academic years, 36 percent of students withdrawn for homeschooling lived in families that had at least one prior accepted report for suspected abuse or neglect from the Department of Children and Families.

pvg 4y ago

105 comment thread 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34214244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34214244 And the same article yesterday ago with its proper title, couple of comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34346096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34346096

thaumasiotes 4y ago

HN headline does not reflect the actual headline ("Why did teenage suicides decline during America’s first covid-19 lockdowns?") It also makes a claim that the article wisely doesn't make. Compare the OP: > The paper concludes that in-person bullying is the likeliest explanation for the rise in suicides when schools reopened. No suggestion that any evidence was used in making that conclusion. The finding is that suicide rates dropped due to school closure.

MobileVet 4y ago
To this point, my buddy is a 20 year teacher. He says that the difference between bullying today and 30 years ago when we were in school is that then it stopped at 3 when we went home. Social media provides the ability for bullying to continue 24/7 and it does. It is a huge problem as text and posts go on and on late into the night. Being always on and connected is a scourge for youth trying to find themselves in a historically and biologically tough time.
- headsoup 4y ago
  This would not support that suicides dropped though would it? Kids would be online more and likely face bullying continuation. Not that I disagree with it generally being a horrible scourge on childhood experience.
- everdrive 4y ago
  If this is the case, wouldn't cyberbullying have increased during the pandemic since kids would have been on devices more often?
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    If there’s no IRL activities to bully about, the bullies’ attention is likely drawn to other things more quickly.
headsoup 4y ago
I assume no consideration appears to be made for "children spend more time with family" and so gain the health benefits of such a thing. Modern society is way to busy downplaying the importance of foundationally secure emotional connections. Busy instead pushing 'independence' and outsourcing of childrens' time and affection for the sake of income.

hellothere1337 4y ago

The whole point of the modern school system is to train children to be obedient to social pressure and authority. Otherwise they get excluded and get bad grades. It's a kind of pavlovian conditioning to create docile worker drones. No wonder any intelligent human being would rather not go through this dehumanizing gauntlet that destroys both joy and curiosity.

michael1999 4y ago

The school-months and school-days are long known to have the highest rate of teen suicide. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/childrens-risk-of-suicide-increases-on-school-days/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/childrens-risk-of...

dandare 4y ago

Fun fact: boys are more likely to die as a result of suicide than as a result of an attack or stabbing, use of drugs, accidental poisoning, drowning, fall and any other kind of accident, except for traffic accidents, COMBINED. Parents should talk to boys about the danger of suicide much more that they talk about drugs and or drowning. Cause of death by age and gender, EU, 2010: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/HLTH_CD_ANR__custom_2802414/bookmark/table?lang=en&bookmarkId=d8aab007-8a00-46b1-b493-1b4b9c7c7261 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/HLTH_CD_ANR__...

glandium 4y ago
Also: boys are more likely to succeed than girls: there are vastly more suicide attempts from girls than boys, but more suicide deaths of boys than girls.

orwin 4y ago

Like i said in the older thread of the same article, bullying in my experience is negated by: community integration (small school in small towns are better in my experience, especially when everybody know your grandma), School/ysc 'admin' are good: basically if the 'chief' (don't know the English term, sorry) tell their team and professors to be attentive to bullying and respond/get involved with parents, you're golden, and great teachers who manage to involve their coworkers.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> School/ysc 'admin' are good: basically if the 'chief' (don't know the English term, sorry) The head of a school below the university level is called the 'principal'; the head of a university may be called a number of things. It looks like Harvard and Yale have 'presidents' while the University of California has 'chancellors'.