I believe that most teen suicides are the result of adults, parents, or friends not being able to deal with the realization that his son, daughter, or peer is suicidal. How can these teen suicides be stopped? One must first identify a suicidal teen by looking for "signs". These can range from large events such as the death of a loved one, or something like their sexual orientation to poor school performance or a sudden change to drugs and alcohol. Second, the parent or person must be supportive to the teen and communicate with them openly, instead of either not talking about suicide in fear it may give the teen ideas or using punishment as a form or correcting the teen's behavior. Third one should take the teen to get some counseling or to get a psychiatric evaluation to find out if the teen has a depressive disorder so they can be treated instead of thinking that the teen is just going though some normal emotional challenges, typical for that age.
Many teens behave much differently when they may be potentially suicidal. The one's that succeed are partially due to adults failing to notice signs of depression and potential suicide. National studies found that adolescent females attempt suicide more often than adolescent males, however, males complete suicide in far greater number than females due to males succeeding on their first attempt by using more deadly methods (www.extension.unr.edu). Once a teen is identified as suicidal, the success rate of suicide for that teen drops sharply. From this information one can conclude that support from adults and friends can prevent or stop a distressed teen from committing suicide.
The emotional stage that teens are in before they try to take their own life is "hopelessness" - when a teen is no longer able to cope with the emotional stresses of their lives.
