Shared Links (weekly) Sept. 22, 2024
For more like this, subscribe to the newsletter and get everything I’ve been sharing in your email.
-
-
New NAMI book for parents and families
NAMI put out the original book – You Are Not Alone, to help people dealing with mental health issues.
This week, they released You Are Not Alone for Parents and Caregivers.
-
Sharing – Are We or Are We Not in a Youth Mental Health Crisis?
Is it a crisis that has teens struggling with mental health more recently, or is it some combination of cultural factors and more willingness to talk about mental health?
-
Sharing – Most young people who die by suicide in the US do not have previous mental health diagnoses, study suggests
I think there are two things that stood out to me about this research.
Young people who need help aren’t getting it. Part of the reason why there is no diagnosis is that many of these young people are suffering in silence. They are vulnerable for a number of reasons but we are not taking the steps to identify the issues and get them help. That’s on all of us. It appears to be a larger issue with minority kids, males, and other groups who historically have been underserved my mental health resources.
Guns are so effective at killing that kids with access to guns only need to consider it one time. It’s hard to get to a diagnosis when the method works so often. Only 33% of those lost to suicide by gun had a diagnosis, compared to 40% overall. -
Sharing – Teens feel less emotional support than their parents think they do, new report shows
I can’t help but wonder how many of those teens who feel like they have no one to talk to about their emotions have parents who don’t think their teen has emotional struggles because, surely, they would talk to their “supportive” parents.
Don’t assume your kids are fine because they haven’t talked to you about struggling. They may be in that gap.
-
Sharing – New Research from Thorn: Financial Sextortion on the Rise, Targeting Teen Boys
The use of AI is a new twist. It’s not enough to tell young boys not to send explicit selfies; they also need to understand that someone may use AI to create an explicit image of them regardless. Education must include societal-wide awareness that an image may not be what it appears to be. That has to be part of this. The extortionist’s main weapon is the shame of having explicit photos of their victim out among their friends and family. Shame is powerful. When we live in a world where anyone with an internet connection and a photo of your face can turn that into an explicit image of you, we need to eliminate the shame. There’s no shame to be had for someone else’s bad actions.
