What is suicide? Suicide is said to a defined as the intentional taking of ones own life.

For a very long time suicide was mostly associated with the adult population and as troubling as this was and still is, we have something else to be concerned about. Our children between the age group of 5 – 14 are fallen prey to this devastating act.

Statistics Canada www.suicideinfo.ca reflects that between 1993-1997, 229 Canadian children died by their own hands. To break down this statistic a little more, 2 boys from among this number were under the age of 10.

The fact that one life is taken is far too many lives to be cut short. Our beautiful children are carrying burdens that they believe that the only way in which they can remove those burdens is by taking their own lives.

Why do our children choose to take such a drastic step? Let us take a look at three of the reasons why they would choose suicide.

They believe that this is what is best for their parents.

As troubling as this may be and it should be troubling, it is a fact that one of the reasons why a child commit suicide is because they believe that this is what is best for their parents. It may be that their parents have been struggling for quite sometime to keep some food on the table. The child may reason within him or herself that if there is less mouth to be fed then the better it will be for the parents and to a greater extent for the entire family.

Pay Back

There is this belief by those who choose to commit suicide, that if they take their own lives then those whom they leave behind will “forever” be sorry for the pain and agony that they had caused them. The sad reality about this is that there is some truth to this assumption. Whenever a child and to a greater extent anyone within a family dies by suicide, the entire family suffers.

To Ease Physical Pain

When our children have fought valiantly against the pain of a chronic disease, in a moment of tiredness they turn their gaze into the direction of suicide.

Our children are precious and the fact that we know a little more about the reason why they would commit suicide, it will help us to help them never to walk down this road that has no cover.