Earliest I thought about it was in 4th grade. I came very close at age 10 or 11 when I nearly jumped off a skyscraper in Indiana. So yeah, it is possible.
Oh, and I can tell you from my own experience that taking a huge overdose of sleeping pills does not knock you out any faster than taking a normal dose of sleeping pills does, despite what you see in the movies.
Well, for one thing, I think in order to seriously contemplate suicide, one has to have a good grasp of what death actually means. So a related question would be: At what age do most children begin to actually know what it means to “die”? I mean, when I was about 6, I was caught fooling around with some girl, but neither of us had a clue about what we were doing, other than some people on TV did it, too.
Children often mimic adults without any clue as to what they’re actually doing. Yeah, so death means that you’re not there anymore. But from the child’s perspective, moving to Idaho also means you’re not there anymore. At what age is the child able to really discern between the two? How many of these young’uns offing themselves really consider the implications of what they’re doing, and how many just think, “I’m sad, maybe this will get me some attention”?
Regardless, the problem of kids killing themselves is certainly serious, but the question of whether or not they understand what they’re doing seems important to how we should try to address the problem.
Jeff
Well, don’t keep us in suspense! What base did you get to?
ElJeffe I really doubt the “I’m sad, maybe this will get me some attention” is a common motive, but maybe a common excuse after the failed attempt.
Revenge as in “this’ll teach them, this’ll make them sad like they made me sad”, or “they don’t love me”, or “they all hate me”. But unlike an adult, young children are rarely alone, so have many chances to grab some attention without resorting to suicide.
Children understand death nearly as well as adults, maybe their theological development will mean they won’t see suicide as sinful, but the idea of going away and never coming back is understandable to all but the very young. I suspect the implication to most suicides young or old is seen as “I will no longer have to exist any more, the pain will go away.” and intellectual advancement only leads to more consideration of its effect on those who might be left afterwards.
For all we know, she may have just been incredible unlucky.
The knife was blunt, the rope snapped, the gun jammed, the train was cancelled…yada yada yada.
I had a student who told me that she tried to kill herself at age 4, and knew more or less exactly what she was doing. Her mother had warned her very carefully about not eating the various poisonous substances in the house, and so she knew what to eat when she couldn’t stand the other kids making fun of her clubfoot any more.
True, I don’t know for a fact that it happened, but I didn’t have any particular reason to disbelieve her, either.
I think a child that young can be depressed and formulate a plan but not understand the reality of it. I can remember standing on a canal lock next to a tanker boat and I was going to jump on the deck (for fun). At age 4 I remember trying to decide if it was feasible. The reality of the situation was beyond my grasp.
Right or wrong, the possibility of death is very real.
Some young children understand death and some don’t. It probably depends to a large extent on whether you’ve lost pets, friends, family members etc.
Don’t assume that just because you had a naive childhood that no child can understand the meaning of death.
Do any adults truely understand death? In our culture, something as inevitable and important as death rarely enters our consciousness. When it does, we mourn and get over it as quickly as possible. It strikes me as something that we will never truely be able to reconcile with our own existance.
I know there have been plenty of times I’ve stood at the edges of cliffs, or stared a bottle of pills, and understood that death lurked there but was unable to really comprehend it.