https://nypost.com/2018/06/15/missing-teen-bound-for-harvard-found-dead/
Another casualty of the enormous pressure kids and teens experience these days; parental pressure (guilty), the pressure to fit in, the pressure to 'be best, the pressure to attain best, #FOMO, social media…the list goes on.
The is the second teen death I have heard of in 24hrs., the first was a friend of my Ds - college bound in September, died of overdose two days ago.
Sad, sad, sad…so sad.
Thank you for sharing this. It is indeed very sad.
I think you’re reading too much into this. He suffered from Depression. There’s no indication in the article that this was related to any academic pressure put on him.
The only reason this made the papers is that the kiddo was headed to Havahhd… The obsessions is ubiquitous… if kiddo was going to State U we would never have heard about him.
Sad as it is to say, I agree with @katliamom. However, wherever this young man was headed to school, the sad fact is that it wasn’t enough to keep him from suicide.
The linked article says only that he was found dead, not that suicide has been determined to be the cause, although there are indications like depression that suggest it as likely.
This is terribly sad, and making it about an issue (college pressure) when suicide is most often the end point of depression, concerning which we can’t possibly know the cause if indeed there is one, seems gratuitous.
To those I offended, I apologize.
Just to be clear, I do not intend to suggest or imply college pressure or academic pressure were the specific cause of his suiciding (I do not know the correct term), I am just suggesting that, IMO, kids today have too much pressure: pressure to be successful / be the best / be popular / fit in / achieve greatness before they are out of diapers etc. I do think those pressures can be overwhelming. I understand depression is a disease over which a person has no control; I just feel, rightly or wrongly, that societal pressures can be very overwhelming, for an already fragile person
When I think back to the days my kids were in pre-school, the pressure was already on! I remember feeling completely deficient as a parent because my kids did not know their ABCs and were not counting to 100 backwards.
Harvard bound or CC bound, today’s teens face a world of pressures, that I know for a fact, I didn’t face as a teen.
I’m sorry for this boy’s family, and for every family whose fabric is forever altered by mental health crises and suicide.
As a parent, each time I hear about a tragedy like this, my heart sinks. Just a few days ago, I learned of a suicide (most likely) of a Princeton student who walked in front of an oncoming train in Texas.
Why such young and promising individuals commit the unthinkable isn’t easy to understand and decipher as each individual has unique circumstances and environments. I wouldn’t be so quick to find the causation of suicide, however, to stress and pressure associated with the admission to elite colleges and survival. I find it true when Nietzsche said, “When one knows why of life, he can take any how.” In other words, as long as an individual find meaning in WHY he does WHAT he does in his life, he can handle the stresses and the pressures that bombard them. For every tragic case, we have to remember that there are hundreds of individuals who thrive in the same pressure cooker environment and become successful in life. In other words, the environment can’t be the cause. The environment, however, can aggravate the existing issues already had been long brewing.
As a concerned parent, I’ve always examined my own thoughts, actions, decisions – both conscious and unconscious – that were relating to raising my kids. Are my kids individuals born of me but not of me or are they a mere vicarious extension of my unfulfilled dreams? Have I made a mistake? Have I crossed the line? Have I? Have’t I? When a mere kid decide to take his or her own life because life is simply unbearable and that death is the ultimate and welcoming relief, there’s definitely been a disconnect in that person’s life between what gives that individual a meaning or connection to the raison d’etre.
I don’t know why a young person takes his or her life, this Harvard case or that of Princeton student’s. Their parents’ upbringing methods, the cultural and societal pressures or a genetic propensity toward depression…? I don’t know. I’m just heartbroken that for some of our young, death is more preferable than life. I wish that I were a catcher in the rye…
I agree that this is human interest only because of Harvard, which is deeply troubling.
The brief article would seem to imply suicide as a possibility.
Every time a person does commit suicide, it would seem that people judge survivors, and the OP does do that, granted, in an effort to help. But imagine being a parent of a young person who committed suicide and reading that.
Clinical depression versus situational depression is an illness, a brain disorder. And actually studies have shown that young suicides aren’t always depressed. They make an impulsive decision, sometimes after a break-up.
If this kid were not headed for Harvard, the issue of pressure would not come up. It is wrong to assume that every parent of an Ivy League student has applied pressure. Just not true.