In early 2024, Burrell Behavioral Health released a report on the state of mental health among kids in Missouri. The 2024 youth mental health report included data from the 2022 student survey that showed more Missouri students reported seriously considering suicide as compared to previous years.
Out of the roughly 1,800 Missouri students grades 6-12 who responded to the survey, 11% had seriously considered suicide, while 4.3% said they had attempted suicide.
The report listed social media and mass violence as stressors that can impact the mental wellbeing of youth, and included resources and information for parents and trusted adults.
Jessica Obuchowski is the Vice President of Youth Services for Brightli Central region - the parent company of Burrell Behavioral Health. She spoke about warning signs that parents can look for in their children and how to start the conversation with kids about mental health and suicide.
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Jessica Obuchowski: I think the thing that I want parents to consider is that you know your child best.
And so, when we think about warning signs of suicide, we think about any sudden changes in their mood or their behavior, you know, mood swings, sleeping too much or sleeping too little.
Maybe they just seem persistently sad and that's just not your kid.
"We just need to be transparent with kids because they, you know, if they're feeling these things, or they're thinking about it — we just gotta call it out what it is."Jessica Obuchowski
Losing interest in things that they were previously really invested in, and then isolation is another big one, I think with kids — if they started spending more time alone than usual.
Some of the more advanced warning signs might be if, you know, they're starting to prepare means, you know, how am I going to do this? How am I going to try to end my life.
And so, you may pay attention to things in your household — we should pay attention to things in the household like medication, for example.
If your child is on medication, you're on medication — anyone in the house is on medication, you know, we want to be mindful of how much medication there is, [and] is it missing? That kind of thing. We want to secure those things.
I think one of our saving graces right now is – this generation of youth, they are more likely than any previous generations to talk about mental health, to talk about their struggles and their stressors, and so, as adult helpers, we really need to treat that as a gift and use that as a vehicle to be having conversations.
But I think the best “in” with kids is really to find a time when you're all calm and not dysregulated, right. Like we don't want to bring this up in moments when we're fighting over how late they were out, or whether they're using drugs, we don't want to do that.
We really want to bring it up in a calm time, maybe more natural time – we're watching TV or having dinner or something like that.
But if parents are starting to notice these warning signs, I think that is a way to kind of bring it up. Like, "I've noticed lately - I care about you a lot - but I'm concerned, you've been sleeping a lot lately. I'm wondering if maybe you're not feeling so great and sometimes when people don't feel so great, they might be thinking about suicide."
So you'll notice I said the word suicide in that — a lot of parents are scared to even say that word.
We just need to be transparent with kids because they, you know, if they're feeling these things, or they're thinking about it — we just gotta call it out what it is.
That's the scary part as a parent, you know, having a conversation and then hearing what's going on for them can be really challenging.
We want to listen, and we want to listen to understand because their struggles are not the same as your struggles. We might want to quickly judge or dismiss what they're feeling, but that's going to be the quickest way to shut down that conversation.
And so, asking as many open-ended questions about what they're going through: ‘How long have you been feeling this way? What's that like for you? That sounds really hard.’ And validating what they're going through and their feelings can be so important.
