Innformative Speech on Teenage Suicide

Look around at your peers in the school. How many of them wish they were dead? When 13.7% of males and 30.1% of females in 10th grade say they seriously consider committing suicide, we need think about what is wrong. What makes these 15 and 16 year olds that have so much of their life left to live want to die? 14% of teens said they tried to kill themselves. That’s like having 3 people in our class who have tried to commit suicide. The pressures of life at our age are difficult but they’re not so difficult that 4,135 teenagers a year should be killing themselves. The rate of teenage suicide has tripled since 1950, but why?

Is it because movies and video games have become more violent? Is it because they make death seem to be heroic, romantic, and glamorous? A 16-year-old boy who attempted suicide because of teasing at school said that before he tried to commit suicide he imagined his funeral with all the people who teased him feeling horrible about what they had done. He didn’t seem to think that when he died it would be over. All he cared about was that dieing would just get him revenge. So is it because teenagers are less realistic about death that caused the suicide rate to triple?

Or is it because of the breakdown of the family? In 1980 there were only 411 cases of divorces for youths under 25 and in 1999 there were 824. The amount of divorces has more then doubled. More and more families are getting divorced and because of that less support is given to the teenagers of those families. The families don’t even have to be divorced. 90% of suicidal teens said that their parents didn’t understand them. Is it the decreasing significance of the family in teenagers’ lives that is causing suicide rates to increase?

Or is it because the increase of gun availability? In 2/3 teen suicides guns were used. Or is it because in today’s world there is more pressure to go to school and get good grades and be successful? There is no final answer for why the rate of teen suicide has tripled since 1950. You can’t pinpoint why teenagers now are deciding to commit suicide at a larger rate then in 1950. You can only speculate why but to know why the rate has increased you have to know who are the teens that are committing suicide?

Who are the teens