Episode 177: What Parents Need to Know About Teen Suicide with AnneMoss Rogers

In this episode, we're diving into a very difficult yet vital topic – suicide among children and teens. This episode may be triggering to some, so please give yourself grace and compassion as you consider whether or not to listen to this episode.

If you or someone you know needs support there is help available here:

Crisis text line 741-741

Suicide & Crisis Lifeline 988

International Association for Suicide Prevention - IASP

I'm joined by AnneMoss Rogers, a mental health and suicide education expert. She’s the author of two mental health books: Diary of a Broken Mind and Emotionally Naked. Together, we'll explore the critical insights and vital information that parents need to know about teen suicide.

Here are some of the topics we covered in this episode:

• AnneMoss's journey through the loss of a child to suicide 

• How to identify indicators of mental health struggles

• Discerning normal curiosity vs. signs needing attention in kids discussing death

• Distinguishing self-harm and suicide

• How to handle a child's suicidal thoughts

• Seeking risk assessment

• Advocacy steps for swift support and child well-being as a parent

• Responding to mental health issues in the community among children

May this discussion empower parents with compassion, open communication, and proactive mental health awareness for preventing suicide in children and teens.

To learn more about AnneMoss Rogers, visit her website mentalhealthawarenesseducation.com and her blog emotionallynaked.com. Follow her on LinkedIn @annemossrogers, YouTube @annemossrogers, Instagram @annemossrogers and Twitter @annemossrogers.

Resources: 

• My Child Has Been Suicidal. What do I do Now?: A free eBook for A "What to Do, What to Say" Guide for Caregivers

• Diary of a Broken Mind: A Mother’s Story, A Son’s Suicide, And The Haunting Lyrics He Left Behind

• Emotionally Naked: A Teacher’s Guide to Preventing Suicide & Recognizing Students at Risk

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TRANSCRIPT

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.

Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go! 

Laura: Hello, dear listeners. This is Dr Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, we're going to be discussing a sensitive topic. How to discuss suicide and self harm with your children and teens. I want to start this episode by emphasizing the profound care and sensitivity with which I've tried to approach this topic. This is a profoundly sensitive and emotionally charged subject that affects individuals and families in deep and lasting ways. My guest and I acknowledge that discussing these matters may trigger some strong emotions or difficult memories. And you are those who are listening along with you. And we want to provide a safe and compassionate space for you as we delve into this important issue. So please let this serve as a content warning.

This episode contains discussions about suicide, depression, emotional mental health struggles in children and teens and myself. We will share stories and statistics that may be distressing for some listeners. Please please consider your own emotional well being before listening and know that it is entirely okay to offer yourself grace and skip this episode if you feel that it may be too difficult for you to handle. If you or someone you know, is struggling with thoughts of self harm or suicide, we urge you to reach out to a trusted friend, family member or mental health professional. In the United States you can simply dial 988 to get support. There's also quite a few options internationally at International Association for Suicide Prevention. iasp.info. It's an international site that kind of collects options for who to contact if you need support based on your country of origin. Please remember that you are not alone and help is available to you. All right, let's go into the episode now. 

Okay, so on this week's episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, I'm sitting down with Anne Moss Rogers to discuss suicide in our little ones, our young kids, our teens. So, Anne Moss Rogers is a mental health and suicide education expert. She's a speaker and she's here to talk to us about how to have really difficult and challenging conversations with our kids. Conversations that need to happen. Anne Moss, why don't you get us started by just telling us a little bit about who you are, what you do and, and your story, we'd love to hear it. 

AnneMoss: I used to be in advertising and then I owned my, I co-owned a digital marketing firm and around 2010, I was really concerned about my younger Charles. Before then I had seen some signs and of course, the pediatrician, he'll grow out of it. My husband, oh, don't worry about it. He'll grow out of it. And my mo my spidey sent the intuition is saying, you know, it's something more and I, I felt kinda like I was on an island with, with not a lot of help. And I remember we started seeing a therapist simply because my husband and I didn't know what to do, especially when he started using drugs and alcohol. I would find out later he had drugs and alcohol to numb those feelings of suicide.

And to any other painful feelings which of course doesn't resolve anything but it gets you addicted and it pushes it away, making it something bigger later. And it robs you of the ability to develop other coping strategies. But of course, he's a teenager and guess what? In the moment it works. So, why not, why not use that? And isn't it better to use drugs and alcohol instead of killing himself? And, I mean, who can answer that? You know? I mean, so he was chosen to be on homecoming quarter, sophomore year and I think to everybody in the stands that you're looking down, they must have thought how, you know, she's got one son who actually is elected homecoming king and the other one is on the court that that family must have it made. We did not have it made and I wasn't trying to keep it a secret, but I can tell you nobody really wanted to talk about it. 

And I remember going to that counselor going. Are there any groups that we could go to? No, none that I know of which is so stupid. Why wouldn't you know the resources? So every clinical social worker counselor type meeting I have, I let them know there are parent, parental support sources and here they are one being NAMI family support group in every state or available on Zoom. NAMI family to family, which is a six weeks course on living with someone with mental illness. And then there's families anonymous and smart recovery, both have ones related more to the addictions and substance misuse, which often happens with mental and we have family support as well.

I would eventually go to families anonymous. And meanwhile, my son, we have to basically kidnap him out of his bed and take him to a wilderness program. And because he's just taking all these really dangerous risks he's using and using more and more dangerous drugs, taking greater chances. And I'm like, he is not gonna live if, if he stays here much longer and there is nothing I could do to stop it. And that's when you really realize as a parent how helpless you are, because you think, oh, I'll just take away the car keys. I remember one parent telling me, oh, well, my kid does drugs. I just put that sort of thing. It doesn't go on in our household all hardy. Like, well, I got it made, I would later find out that her son was a drug dealer and the way I found that out is that fileware  on my son's computer and I would see her again and she would kinda have that haughty attitude with me.

And I remember being, feeling sorry for her, but also wanting to go and say, you know, your kid is selling drugs on Facebook, Messenger, right? You're, you're aware of that. But I, I didn't do that. I'm not vindictive, I'm vindictive for about two seconds in my head. And then I get to a place where that's just cruel and I probably would have told her if I thought she might have been receptive, but I don't think she would have been. So fast forward, he goes to wilderness therapeutic. He ends up not really using the coping skills he learned and he becomes addicted to heroin and I don't know this at all. And it's kind of crazy that I don't know it, but he would text his drug dealer. Drug dealer would come to the front of the house and deliver the drugs to him in the car. He would do the drugs in the car. It was heroin. I thought you had to shoot it up. He snorted it and then he would come back in the house and he would sleep it off. Well, it's 2 a.m. and guess what, I'm sleeping. So we didn't really know. And I mean, I saw some odd behavior and things that were suspect, but I'll be honest with you, my child would do heroin, not my kids. No way. 

Laura: Yeah. 

AnneMoss: You know, we were good then, you know, we've gone through all this trouble. Therefore, somehow to me that built some kind of wall. We would find out he was addicted when the police came back and showed me pictures of him selling my family silverware at a pawn shop. And I just didn't know what to do with that information, at first. Of course, on one side it's like, oh, he's definitely using drugs and the other. Like, no, there's another reason for that, you know, there's that side that doesn't want to believe.

Laura: Doesn't want it to be true. Sure. 

AnneMoss: So I end up and I am really proud of how I handle this stuff. I sat down with my child gently, calmly without yelling. And I said, the police came back and they showed me pictures of you selling our family silver. I looked in the box, there's one spoon left, I suspect drug use. His dad was on the speaker phone, by the way. I said, why don't you tell us what's been happening? And he goes into this big story and I listened to the whole thing and he goes, well, do you believe me? And I just said, you know, Charles, that is some story. And then you know what I did? I shut up. I said nothing. I didn't lecture. I didn't ask more questions. If we leave those stretches of silence, it gives our kids a moment to process the information and a lot of really rich valuable information can, can come in those silences if we shut up long enough. 

Laura: Yeah. 

AnneMoss: And that's what I did. And then he would eventually and it probably wasn't more than a minute. But it, it felt like a long time. 

Laura: Yeah. Those silences can feel really long.

AnneMoss: Right. And he, he confesses to, he thinks he may be addicted to an opiate. He never says heroin because heroin is, you know, ugly and dripping with stigma, you know, wants to really be associated as a heroin addict. And I and Chales didn't want to be that, you know, he didn't start all this to, to grow up to be, you know, addicted to heroin. He would go to detox and rehab to recovery house and then he would relapse. They would take him back to detox. He saw a friend of his there and they left together and for two weeks, we didn't really know where they are.

Were we got the occasional text and we got each, got a call. Here's what I wish I would have done kind of in the mode of, well, we gotta do the tough love thing. We've done everything else. Charles wasn't a tough little kid, because to him, tough love was kind of weaponizing my love and saying, well, if you're not well, we don't love you anymore and you're useless to us. I didn't think that, but that's how he translated it, because this is a very loving child. Always, our love was really important. 

Our family was really important. And I mean, this is a kid you walked in his room and he had all the family pictures up on the wall and by the way, them on the wall because when you struggle without the suicide, that would stop him were those family pictures. I had no idea that's why I had them up on the wall. But I would read later, that's why I did. So he's out there for two weeks. Here's what I wish I would done. I wish I would have called him every day and I wish I would have text him as much as I want you to get well.

I love you even if you don't, allowing him to understand that he may not be living in our house or allowed to live in it and he couldn't because we were moving and we had nowhere to live in the 10 weeks between the time we sold the house and moved into the other one. So we were living in various AirBNBs and I mean, he hadn't been with us to live in a recovery house. So I didn't have accommodations for him too. And he would call me on a Friday afternoon. 

I didn't realize it was our last phone call and you know, it didn't go real well and I was emotionally bereft. I did not handle this. Well, he's yelling and I yelled back and that's never the right thing to do. We should always, we're the adults. If we start yelling, it escalates their behavior and they're just gonna get in that vortex of emotion. And we need to avoid that by staying out of that vortex of emotion and keeping and check our own emotions. But I was so emotionally spent with the house selling and him being out there. And we just, we had only known about the drug addiction for maybe 30 days or actually less.

But if, let's just say 30 days, so I didn't even wrap my arms around it. And then the police came and met us in the parking lot of where we were eating dinner. One night they called my husband's cell phone. They said we're gonna meet you right there. And they delivered the worst news of our lives and told us they had found our son dead, and then they told us it was a suicide and the method lepto question.That line felt like this extra twist of the knife. And at the time, I'm like, I must be the worst mother on earth. I mean, didn't he know we loved him? Why would he do this to us? But he didn't do this to us. 

He did it to himself. He thought he would burden and that the world would be better off without him, including us. He thought he was doing us a favor. You know, he's addicted, he's worthless. And wouldn't our family be much better without that all the anguish he caused.  That's what he thought. And I understand that now and I didn't understand why suicide for a long time. And it took me years to get there, so I sold my digital marketing business. I got training and then I talked to probably now hundreds of people with lived experience, because I wanted to understand what that moment was like.

And it's different for everyone. But, you know, some people have lived with thoughts of suicide since they were eight years old and have lived with those thoughts. Other people might have once or twice in their life and it never revisits or come up, comes up. So there's all types of living with this. But I think it's really important as parents to recognize those signs because Charles did leave, oh just big signs. And I didn't recognize them because I wasn't educated what they were. 

Laura: Anne Moss, I just wanna, before I jump into questions because I have them. I just, I just, I want to express my compassion for you and my gratitude that you've turned such a painful moment in your family's history into an opportunity for all of us to reduce suffering in the world and to learn more. So I just, I really appreciate your bravery and willingness to do that.

AnneMoss: Laura I didn't think I could survive pain like that. I've never felt anything like that ever in my life. I mean, for a year I would curl up on the floor and just scream and cry and kick the ball about how unfair it was. And you know, you wanna go back and redo everything because you see the errors afterwards, you see what you missed and that's agonizing and I just don't want other parents to miss. I mean, you know, you might be in a situation we can't prevent all suicides, but we can do the best we can.

And I have gotten to a place, it took me a lot of time and a lot of work where I have forgiven myself, where I've learned to see joy again, where I've learned to live without the one that I love and it was hard and it doesn't mean that I've forgotten him or don't think about him or have some difficult times, but it's not like it was at first time and a lot of work has sort of removed the fangs of, of that. Don't feel like I'm walking broken glass with bare feet anymore. 

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Well, II, I so appreciate the, the desire to want to do as much as we can. So, what are some of the signs that we can be looking for as parents? 

AnneMoss: So, a lot of times it's really natural for our teenager to sort of pull away from us and you know, what their friends do and say seems to be more important. But if they're pulling away from you and the front and they're isolating, that is a warning sign. 

Laura: Okay. 

AnneMoss: And, and a very important one, you want to look for like multiple traits. Kids who get sick a lot, go to the school nurse a lot. They're often to struggle with maybe depression and anxiety and maybe at higher risk of suicide. You know, their stomach hurts, their muscle hurts, they get more headaches, they may get more flu and, you know, be more prone to get COVID. And that was short. I mean, I knew the first name of every nurse of every school he ever went to and they knew me and had me on speed dial back when there was a thing called speed dial. And so lots of times they'll draw pictures.

Younger kids may draw a lot of pick out death. They may write papers in English class or at home or tell stories about death. They may talk about death, a lot. Charles talked about death a lot. Taking a lot of risks like crazy risk, like doesn't he know that's going to like kill him? And there's a fine line between that thrill seeker and the one who's taking risks who basically doesn't care if they live or die, like if it happens by accident, then I've, I've solved all my problems. 

Laura: Yeah, I can, I, so I, I really appreciate that kind of fine line distinction. I feel very curious about some of the other things that you've mentioned that can also be developmentally normal. Like there's developmental stages where kids do get more interested in death or if they've lost a grandparent or a pet, they might talk more about it. How can we as parents be discerning and figuring out what's normal and what might need a little bit more attention and then what do we do if we're seeing some of these signs? What's the first step in?

AnneMoss: So Charles would consistently talk about dying young. So while, and we even as a teenager, you know, mom, I might die, I'll probably die young, I'll probably never have children and not get married and then talked about all the people who did die young. And it could be just a curious conversation and instead of being struck down, we need to ask the question. I'm so curious about that. What made you think of that? Start asking more questions and get to the bottom of it. So it sounds like you think about death a lot. Tell me more about that. Do not shame them, do not humiliate them. Remember to ask all questions related to suicide or death with curiosity. And if they've lost a grandparent, that's, you know, if they're younger, you wanna sort of define their maturity of, of the, of understanding because to some kids, it's like, well, the grandmother's gonna come back by magic because I see that on cartoons, you know?

Laura: Right.

AnneMoss: Or, or a video game. So they don't have a mature concept of debt. So let's say your, your child is at school and they've run out into the street when they were upset or they could have been experiencing suicidal ideation. This came on in a flash and they are left in a flash and they decided to run out and, and that is suicidal ideation for a younger child.

Laura: RIght.

AnneMoss: But they don't know what suicidal thoughts are they don't even know what the word suicide means. So you would add. So if you were to ask a teenager, are they? And you wanna know if they're thinking of suicide, you want to say, are you thinking of suicide? For a younger child, you want to say, were you trying to make yourself dead? So you wanna find out, was there some intention behind the act? Now, it may be different when you talk to them because they would have come out of that sort of spell for lack of a better phrase because when somebody and this isn't for everyone, but when they're in suicidal thought they can be in sort of a trance like place where they don't have full control over their actions. You know? So the, these thoughts keep coming, they're so painful. They're so persistent and intense.

Laura: And intrusive.

AnneMoss: Very intrusive. But when I talk and then I'm like that real but intense part just like my grief last 60 to 90 seconds. So stick it out because it's gonna drop off and it may get intense again, but it's gonna drop off and you're gonna feel ambivalent. And then I can always tell when somebody's coming out of it. Like, for instance, there was a friend of mine on a bridge and all of a sudden she said it's really cold out here and I'm like, bingo, she's coming out of it because the whole time she's like, I'm worthless.

Nobody loves me. And I just, it's really important to listen to that person and, and not, and not try to fix it. But I gotta, and, and also say what they say. So, they'll talk about death a lot. They'll say I'm so worthless. I can't do this anymore. Oh, I have a solution to fix this. I feel so overwhelmed. I just to die. I'm going to kill myself. Funny that when people say I'm going to kill myself, how the parent will say, oh, well, because they said it, therefore they're not gonna do it. Now they're telling you because they want to talk about it. 

Laura: Yeah. 

AnneMoss: Parents don't wanna ask that question. Are you thinking of suicide? Because what's the first thing that they think are.

Laura: I mean, I think that a lot of parents are afraid it's going to give the kid ideas that they didn't have before.

AnneMoss: First question I got last night from a student. And it's always the first question. Even if I put it in the presentation from parents. Won't it plant the idea in their head? The answer is no. I will say the flip side of that is if they're at school and exposed to the suicide of a student and they're going through that period, they are at higher risk. But talking about it, talking about it doesn't give them the idea, but instead gives them the opportunity to talk about it and what you'll see most of the time is really leaked. Like my God, finally somebody is.

Laura: Yeah. You know, so I've, I've experienced suicidal ideation my entire, I mean, since I was 13, I think it is the first time I remember really having those thoughts come in. It's not something I talk about often, but I still experience that suicidal ideation from time to time during moments of extreme stress. When my window of tolerance is very low. It's one of the places my, my brain goes. And I can imagine at 13, if a parent had asked me some of those questions, have you ever thought about harming yourself?

Do you ever, you know, think about those things. I would have been so relieved, because I thought I was so crazy as a 13 year old. I thought no one else was thinking these things. I thought I was so bad and so wrong for thinking about them. It took me until college, studying psychology and really into grad school for me to really understand how not alone I was and how not, how common some of those thoughts can be and how much support there was for me. I didn't know as a teenager, it would have been such a relief to have a parent to talk to about it. 

AnneMoss: Wow. Well, I really appreciate you being so vulnerable. I think those stories important and if it weren't for people like you Laura sharing their stories with me, I swear, I would have pulled it up like a napkin and given up. I mean, it was, it was the people who had been through this who so generously shared their hearts and their stories that helped me understand that my son didn't kill himself because I was a crummy mother. And I held on to that for a pretty long time. I also want to point out we do not want to say, are you thinking of harming yourself unless we are talking about self-harm.

Laura: Yeah.

AnneMoss: We want to say, are you thinking of suicide? Are you thinking of killing yourself? And we got to ask it. 

Laura: Yeah, can we talk a little bit about the difference between self harm and the drivers behind self harm versus suicide and what parents should be looking out for as them being kind of two discrete categories. Because I also know that in addition to an uptick in teen suicide and younger and younger suicide, self harm is also something that is very big, very happening almost happens via social media too. Now these kids have so much more to contend with than what we did. Can we talk a little bit about some of the differences and how parents?

AnneMoss:  Absolutely. So self-harm is also called non suicidal self injury. Kids who are self harming are not attempting suicide, but they are attempting a way to sort of release the pain. So you know, somebody who self-harm told me she says, I don't get all this mumbo jumbo in my head. But I get blood and when I would cut myself and I would see the blood. It's like that's what pain is. I understand that. And she said it was a way to sort of release the pain in a way she could understand. 

Laura: That makes sense.

AnneMoss: Yeah. A lot of kids sort of get addicted to it. It's kind of a thrill.

Laura: There’s and adrenaline, yeah.

AnneMoss: Yeah. And they're wanting to feel good. So there, there are a lot of reasons for it. Those are the two main ones, kids who are self harmers are only at higher risk for because they're, they don't fear the pain. So a lot of people will say no, I'm not doing that cause it might hurt while I'm doing it. And if a child who has been self harming is also having those urges, they're just more likely to attempt because that's not a hurdle for them.They've been through the pain from cutting. So it is not a suicide attempt, but that's why the risk is, is greater than other kids. 

Laura: Okay. Thank you for that. So, if we ask our kids this really hard question, are you thinking about killing yourself? Are you thinking about suicide? And they say yes, what do we do besides not freak out at the moment? 

AnneMoss: Well, I'm glad you said that because that's number one don't freak out. And a lot of people don't wanna ask it because they are afraid of the answer. They don't know what to do with it. If that child says yes. And if I leave it alone, then I don't have to deal with it and everything will be okay. That's what your brain is telling you. 

Laura: Yeah. 

AnneMoss: But you need to go what you feel in your gut. So your first reaction might be that sense of panic. You gotta stop and take a deep breath. You have to meet them where they are right now. The most important thing is they are sitting in front of you. They have confessed this to you, which is something I never got. I did not know that that is a gift. It is a huge gift. This child has also opened up to you and shared something so deep, so difficult. They said yes, your first response, I am so honored you trusted me with that information. I know it was hard and I really appreciate you being honest. So we have to, we have to let them know that is a step of courage. It is not a step of a weak person. It is a step of courage. We cannot shame them out of suicidal thoughts. We, you know, did you ever ask to have suicidal thoughts? Was it something you desired or did it? 

Laura: No. You know, I've been, I've spent so much time being ashamed of them.

AnneMoss: Right? So we, we cannot add to that shame. Like we can't say, well, you're not gonna do that again. Right? You know, you can't attempt that cause you mean too much and I understand that when you say that you mean you, I love you too much, mean too much to me. That's not how they're saying it. You're basically telling them you can control this and you're sort of shaming them out of a feeling that they never asked for.

Laura: And then you're making and you're making them responsible for your happiness, too. 

AnneMoss: Right? It's okay for to live because while, because they feel obligated to live before they can engage and move forward and enjoy life on their own, on their own terms. Again, that's okay. But we want that child to find their, their own way and build life skills. As a parent what you wanna do if they've told you that or if they've attempted and they're coming home, you want to just every time they walk in the door, are you okay? What's the matter with you? You know, you're, you're panicked because now you have this knowledge and you don't know what to do with that. So let's talk about before we get there.

What do you actually do when you get that confession? So the next thing you wanna do is get a suicide risk assessment and the safety plan and then you might also want to get a psychological evaluation. So you wanna find out if there is some kind of mental illness driving that it may not cause there are people who don't, who struggle with thoughts of suicide, who don't have a mental illness at all. And there are people with mental illness that do have thoughts of suicide and then there are people who suffer from depression or mental illness and never have the first thought of that ever. 

Laura: Right. Where do you go to get a risk assessment? 

AnneMoss: So, usually your county has a suicide risk assessment and if you are in a rural area, they'll often do it telehealth or they'll do it over the phone. 

Laura: Okay. 

AnneMoss: So there's a Columbia, it's called the Columbia suicide scale. And they'll ask, ask some questions to find out should this person be hospitalized? And I want you to know as parents, we kind of want to put them away and go get fixed. But transitioning to a hospital environment and home is, can be a tricky transition. So that's really a last resort. What we want to do is outpatient type support. If, if we can do that. Now, if your child is crumpled in the corner hasn't, has told you that they're thinking of suicide and you can't even get them to speak and they can't even function.

You're gonna, you're gonna need to take them to the psych facility and usually don't have to call 911. You can say let's get in the car and let's go to a facility and get you suicide risk assessment and see where we are with that. To your best ability you want to tell them what the next steps are or you call and put it on speakerphone. So you're both listening at the same time. 

Laura: You know, what about? So, because of the way all of these resources are over, overtaxed at right now, what if the wait seems too like, too long? What if the wait to get in for a psych eval is too long? Some, I mean, some of the clients that I work with, they, they have to wait six months to a year. What are some steps that you can take as a parent to advocate for your kid and get them more support sooner? 

AnneMoss: So, if your child is having suicidal thoughts and you've called the county and like here it'd be RBHA which is Richmond Behavioral Health Authority and they have a crisis line. You'd call there. They do the suicide risk assessment, which is basically on a scale of 1 to 10. Is this child gonna like attempt tonight? You know, how how serious is it? Where are they right now in their thought process have did before? They'll get a lot of information and they make, you know, an informed decision and then they'll do the safety plan after that, the psychological evaluation in some counties, they'll follow up right away with that with that kind of patient. Some of them they'll make, they'll make them wait.

They're not gonna make you wait for suicide risk assessment. That has to be done. Jan, it's considered an emergency. I don't want parents immediately calling 911 unless their child is sitting in the house with a firearm. And any time you mi mix guns and judges there is risk there. And I mean, not that our police officers are now trained, they handle the situation, but it is a last resort and I would call 988 if you don't have any where else to call or you can text 741741 and you can call if you are worried about someone else and you can call and put it on speaker phone so that your loved one, hears the response that you know, so that you're not keeping them in the dark. 

Laura: Okay. And so we've been talking a lot about our own children. But what if your kid comes to you and tells you that their friend is think having some of these thoughts or been thinking talking about it more and is concerned, what can we do as parents for if it's not just our kid, but it's by a kid in our community. 

AnneMoss: So I, I get that a lot, a parent will say, I don't, I don't know whether I should reach out to that parent or not. And I'll say, well, let me ask you this. Would you want to know about your child's suicide before they attempted and died by suicide or would you want to know after? And usually people are like, okay, I'd want to know before. It may be that you don't know the parent but you know, the child really well and that can be awkward. So maybe you and your child call together and then, you know, and you practice it and you talk about it and say this is gonna be an awkward conversation. It's going to be uncomfortable.

I just know as a mom that I would want to know this and Ashley has something important to share with you. If you do not want or have no contact with this parent, go through the school counselor, tell your school counselor and say, and have your child be involved in this process. Don't cut them out. You want to start taking agencies for their own mental health and their own life and you're teaching them and you're just partnering with them. So you can then tell the school counselor what you know, because you've got to tell another trusted adult that can take action because this is life or death. I mean, you wouldn't want to find out later that, that your son had been talking to two kids who had told their parents and none of them told you because they were afraid of how you're gonna react. 

Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. 

AnneMoss: And that parent usually they don't, but maybe that parent cusses you out screams at you forever. But I would rather have a parent mad at me than a child dead. And that's when, you know, I have got to go to the school counselor now. I can't let this go. 

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a really hard situation but so important that we stick up for all, all kids and do those hard things and teach our kids how to do the hard things. I lost a friend in college. She survived her suicide attempt. But because I called, I got her help afterwards. She would never speak to me again and she disclosed after she had taken, you know, steps towards ending her life. And I, so I, I lost that friendship in college. It was a really hard thing to do as I, you know, I was 19. It was very hard to face that, but that person has a life and a family now too, you know. 

AnneMoss: Right. 

Laura: Yeah, we do lose, we, you know, there are risks. So it's not, it's not like, you know, I think if our, our kids were, I, I think about a child, a teenager in that situation, perhaps being quite worried about losing a friend or them being mad at them or being ostracized. And I think it being the parent being, you need to be really strong and making sure that we're all doing the right thing too at the same time. And I think as parents, we have to be willing to have our kids be mad at us when we're talking about a topic like this, when we're talking about lives. 

AnneMoss: Exactly. And so what you said that number one? Wow. I'm, I'm amazed and really proud that at 19 years old you did the right thing and you took that risk and it, it kicked you in the butt. But, you know, it's kinda like my mom start talk about suicide And the very first time she did it, she reached out to a friend who had lost a child to suicide. And as soon as she called and said, she wanted to talk to them, they hung up on her and she was like in her eighties and she called me and she, she, you know, she was so hurt and I'm like, I just started crying. I said, mom, I'm so proud of you.

And then she got over the hurt because I, that's really coming a long way for her. You know, I mean, this is somebody who never talked about mental health or, or any of the ugly family stuff and reached out to someone and she got the door slammed in her face, but she did it and I was just so proud of her for doing. There was a young lady who called 911, a young man and he had a follow up. So she actually made the right call by calling 911. He had it in his possession and he was telling her over the phone that he was going to kill himself. 

The cops show up at the door. The parents are like, what are you doing here? I had no idea. He's just upstairs in his room. They called the young man down, he comes down and they say, well, mom, we will bring you in this conversation, but we want to talk to him first. Everything's okay. He's not in trouble just to kind of calm her nerves because she's still freaking out what they want to talk about. They talk to him and then they talk to the parent and he ends up going to the ER, he is so ticked off at this young lady called 911. And so the mom calls me and says, oh my gosh, what do I do? He's so mad at her and I said he'll probably call me but I want you to defend what she did and say, you know, it's only because she cares about you that she did what she did and I quite frankly am glad she did that because it saved your life. And where would I be? You know, now, if you hadn't have done that? And that said part two is you need to call this young lady because she's freaking out. 

Laura: Yes. Yes. 

AnneMoss: She has no idea how, you know how you feel and you need to tell her all right, right now he's ticked off, but here's the thing and I am so grateful you, you did the right thing. Thank you so much. I I will not, I can't be more grateful. Let me tell you this child had been freaking, hadn't been sleeping. She was worried nobody was talking to her. And so, you know, just by the fact this mom come a couple of weeks go by, she sends me a picture of the two of them hanging out. So he had called her and told her thank you. And they got to be friends and, you know, this isn't like your 19 year old story. But I think the difference is in this case, the mom said she did the right thing. I'm really proud of her and it was so brave and think about how scared she was to do that. 

Laura: Yeah. 

AnneMoss: And I think a little later on he was able to put on that hat and understand how absolutely frightened she was to make that call. 

Laura: Yeah.

AnneMoss: Because it's hard. I've had to and it is hard and I've had one person get really mad at me, but she got, she was grateful a few weeks later and, but like you could go the other way and I just had to take that chance. 

Laura: Yeah. So I feel like we've spent a lot of time talking about those kind of deeply pivotal moments. I'm kind of curious if we can talk a little bit about how, you know, so as we wrap up, I want to be respectful of your time, I just want to touch on. Is there anything we can be doing as parents to as an earlier prevention? You know, but to prevent that kids getting from that point on to that dark place.

AnneMoss: Right. So first of all, we have to understand why our children aren't developing the skills that we developed as children. Because when the digital age moved in that, which we thought would bring us together, pushed us apart and our kids started getting less face to face time than generations before. Well, that face to face time, time on the playground, negotiating with the neighborhood referee that's not been paid.

You know, that you've got, you know, you gotta figure out if you don't like the call and you stocked up, well, you gotta negotiate yourself back into the game, right? Or you got no friends. So that was kind of my world. Well, our kids aren't getting enough of those opportunities to build the resilience. So we need to start building those in our parenting skills and we need to start building those opportunities in school. And I have a list and now we're not gonna get through them all, but I'm just gonna touch the most important. And the first one is some more and lecture less. Our kids are not feeling seen and hurt, we're lecturing them, we're telling them what to do. And they'll tell you the same things over and over because they do not feel hurt.

Laura:  Yeah.

AnneMoss: And we need to shut up and we need to acknowledge. So, what you're saying is that you think that all your friends hate you? So, tell me more about that. Why do you think that instead of refuting? Oh, that's not true. You're absolutely wonderful. And then being sort of cheerleaders and pushing them into the light. We need to allow them that moment of not being okay of being in pain without punishing them and shaming them and drowning them in toxic positivity and parent cheerleading. 

Laura: Right. 

AnneMoss: And if we do that, they're more likely to come back to us when they're struggling and I'm gonna share one more tip of the night and that is be vulnerable yourself. And I don't mean saddling them with some huge issue, but let's say you're going to work for a new job. You're really, really nervous and you wanna make a good impression and you're feeling really anxious. You may tell your children I have been so angry and irritable and I'm gonna tell you why it has nothing to do with you. And I've been taking it out on you and I'm so embarrassed, but I'm really anxious about this new job and I would really appreciate some random hugs and whatever you can do because I'm not handling this role well, and I will handle it well, and I'm gonna figure out some healthy coping strategies to do that.

But you could help and I would love it if you would help. And the random hugs and the understanding would, would really go a long way. You're giving them some power in a world where they feel unseen, unheard and powerless. When they give you that hug, they're gonna instantly recognize that you turn into limp noodle and you are no longer have the racing heart and the sweatiness. They're gonna understand that they are an important part of helping you. And they learned something in that process and I'm gonna share a story that's so sweet.

So a mom did this. She was starting a new job, her 12 year old and her 9 year old got together and other than doing the random hug, which they did, they started writing notes and they snuck down to where she had made her lunch and they put these notes in her lunch. So she opens it up at noon the first day and the daughter had written a note. I love you mom. I hope you're not feeling nervous today. You're the best, you're the best nurse ever. They did that. He did it the next day. They did these personal notes for two weeks.

Laura: So beautiful. 

AnneMoss: I know. I know. So, you know, they felt like they were really doing something and they did, what do you think she did with those notes? Do you think she threw those away?

Laura: Oh, they’re treasures. Yeah, of course.

AnneMoss: They’re treasures, absolutely. She will never let those go.

Laura: And the other like, super powerful, the thing about that is that she modeled for them, what it's like to recognize within yourself that you're going through a hard time and to reach out for support from loved ones like exactly and, and gave them permission to do the same. I, I love that. I have, I know you mentioned that you have an e-resource that an ebook that parents can access to have some, some deeper conversations about this. Can you make sure that I get the link to that or you can tell them where to go?

AnneMoss: Absolutely. What I'll do is I'll send you the link and you'll get the resilience book and you'll also get the book about if your child has admitted they're suicidal and you know, that's been a really popular download because I'm contacted about that all the time, but it gives you scripts, you may not do that script, but it'll give you an idea what you can say. 

Laura: Yeah. And I, I feel like it would be so good for parents to like even if this is not on your radar right now, download it now, read it now so that it's there and ready for you when you are, you know, lots of my listeners have much younger children. But I think it's, this is something to start getting used to and comfortable with so that when the need arises, we're ready and we've got that skill set. 

AnneMoss:But the resilience one. We need to start doing that. Now, now we need to start asking our our kids questions and not lecturing them.

Laura: Yes, listening is not lecturing. Yeah. 

AnneMoss: Right. So they come up with their own. Well, they, you know, you kind of do what I call motivational interviewing but parent style and then I give you examples of what that looks like and sounds like. So yes, I will send you links to that. 

Laura: Okay. So those links will be in the show notes. AnneMoss, thank you so much for, for being so brave and vulnerable and sharing your story and turning it into a, a beautiful way of preventing more pain and hurt in the world. I really can't say thank you enough in helping us have this difficult but really necessary conversation. 

AnneMoss: Well, thank you. You asked some questions, not a lot of people have asked to really dig into those difficult pivotal moments. So I appreciate that that'll kind of differentiate this particular interview from a lot of others. So thank you for that. I really appreciate it. 

Laura: I appreciated our conversation too. Thank you again. 

AnneMoss: Absolutely. 

Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from. 

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout-out, and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family, and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!