Palos Verdes Reaches Out to Keep Teen-Agers From Suicide

Toni Sargent, a Torrance resident whose teen-age son, Jonathan, committed suicide more than three years ago, approached the podium and the room grew silent.

Suicides can happen in stable families with good parents, she told the 350 parents, students and educators who filled the Palos Verdes High School auditorium Monday night.

“Many, many people in the school district knew us. And they were shocked,” the former Torrance PTA leader said. “They just felt that suicide only affected people who were not good parents.”

“We thought we were good parents. We thought we had a good family.”

Sargent was among the speakers at a Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District parents’ meeting that was prompted by the suicide of a Palos Verdes High School student three weeks ago and an attempted suicide by a Miraleste High School student the following week.

Panel Addresses Problem

The gathering, which was sponsored by the high school, the PTA and Project Pride, a school-run counseling program, featured a panel that included a psychologist and the director of a suicide-prevention program. Since the death, school administrators have assigned counselors and teachers to talk to students about suicide. Next week the teachers will attend lectures similar to this one.

The goal is to avoid more deaths like the one that took place Sept. 16.

On that night, a 16-year-old Rancho Palos Verdes boy drove his car off a 200-foot cliff near the 2000 block of Paseo Del Mar in Palos Verdes Estates. Acceleration marks on the street near the site indicated that the act was deliberate, said Sgt. Tom Vanderpool of the Palos Verdes Estates Police Department.

But that was only the begining.

A week later, police took into custody a 19-year-old Rancho Palos Verdes man who threatened a similar attempt. According to Vanderpool, police were told that a young man had left a suicide note at a local newspaper office that said he was going to drive off the same cliff. Police officers, who found the man standing at the cliff’s edge, took him for psychiatric counseling, he said.

On Sept. 28, a 17-year-old Miraleste High School student drove his father’s car over the cliff near the 1600 block of Paseo Del Mar. The Rancho Palos Verdes resident survived the 200-foot fall but then tried to drown himself in the ocean, Vanderpool said. The teen-ager was stopped by police and taken to Long Beach Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for several fractured vertebra and a gash on his right foot, he said.

“(Suicide attempts) run in cycles,” Vanderpool said. “We’ll have a few now and then we won’t have any for a while.”

But many suicides can be prevented, said Alice Healy-Sesno, director of the Youth Suicide Prevention Program for Los Angeles, who told the crowd to look to teen-agers for warning signs that may precede a suicide attempt.

The most common signal is a sudden change in personality or attitude, Healy-Sesno said. A sudden show of depression is classic, but other teen-agers may become very outgoing or begin to abuse drugs and alcohol before attempting suicide. Others may give away personal belongings, like record collections or clothes, before taking their lives.

“If you see a sign, act quickly,” she said. “Don’t let the moment pass.”

A recent suicide in the family, school or community will often plant the idea in a teen-ager that suicide is the answer to his or her problems, Healy-Sesno said. This may lead to a series of suicides in an area during a short period of time, she said.

It is important to provide counseling to teen-agers immediately after a suicide, said Jeffrey Younggren, a school board member and a psychologist. That’s the reason why “the Monday after the suicide we flooded the school with counselors,” he said in an interview.

To keep teen-agers from considering suicide a glamorous or romantic solution, the district does not fly flags at half-staff or hold memorial assemblies for suicides, he said.

Michael Peck, a psychologist with the Suicide Prevention Center of Los Angeles, told the audience that there are three major sources of stress that lead to teen-age suicides: family problems, peer pressure and difficulties at school.

Many times teen-agers will turn to alcohol and drugs to cope with the pressure, he said. Alcohol and drugs are involved in 40% of the teen-age suicides today, he said.

Alcohol and drug abuse are major contributors to the rate of suicide, which has increased 300% since the early 1960s, he said. Other contributors include an increased divorce rate and lack of family support in many households and a decreased stabilizing role played by institutions such as churches and synagogues, he said.

“When the circumstances are really bad and the support system breaks down . . . children need a lot of support,” he said.

During the meeting, the parents of high-school students--visibly concerned over the potential for more suicides--filled out a small stack of cards with questions for the panel to answer.

One mother asked how parents can help their children deal with suicidal friends.

“I mean, what do we say to them?” she asked. “It’s hard enough for them to deal with it.”

Support Urged

Peck told the woman to provide support for her child and advise that the suicidal friend get professional help.

Another asked: “What do I do if I suspect my child is suicidal?”

Sargent, who has dedicated much of her time to educating people about suicide, told the parents to be straightforward with their child: “Ask them, ‘Are you thinking about suicide? Do you want to kill yourself?’ ”

Asked what to say to a teen-ager who expresses signs of depression or suicidal tendencies, Peck said: “Just be a friend. Talk to them about what is bothering them . . . always listen.”

Secondly, teen-agers should be encouraged to seek professional counseling, he said.

Teen-age stress is often higher at schools like Palos Verdes High School, where academic competition is high, he noted.

“At this school a lot of kids are comparing SAT scores and comparing national merit scores and acceptance letters to colleges and universities,” he said. “That is pressure. That is a great deal of pressure.”

Jan Rey, a social worker who organized the meeting, said the issue attracted such a large number of parents because they are worried that there is potential for more suicides.

“I think they feel that the problem is very real and present,” said Rey, the mother of two Palos Verdes High School students. “It is not something abstract. They feel they have to get a grip of it before something else happens.” She said that after the suicide, parents called the school and asked what was being done to prevent further deaths. Parents at the meeting told her that they were surprised to learn that many suicides occur in stable homes, she said. Many asked for more programs for parents.

National and local statistics show a rise in teen-age suicide.

Statistics before 1970 do not break down suicide rates for teen-agers in high school. However, figures after 1970 show that suicide rates for teen-agers across the United States have increased steadily. For every 100,000 deaths of youngsters between the age of 15 and 19 in 1970, 5.9 were suicides. In 1980 that number jumped to 8.5, and then to 10.0 in 1985.

In Los Angeles County last year there were 57 suicides by youths between the ages of 13 and 19, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office. The statistic was up from 55 suicides by teen-agers in 1985-86. The figures for 1987-88 are not yet available.