Informative Speech (Concepts-Topical)
Jean Alba (Fall 2011)
Teen Suicide: Prevention
Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about three major ways to prevent teen suicide.
Central Idea: The three major things you must do if your teen contemplates suicide, Talk to your teens about suicide and reassure them that you love them, Remove all deadly weapons or supplements from your home including gun’s ,knives, pills, and seek a professional help immediately.
INTRODUCTION
1) By a show of hands how many of you know a teenager? Okay now answer this how many of you know a teenager who ever wanted to commit suicide?
A) Well for those of you who know someone even an adult who though about committing suicide today I’m here to tell you how to prevent them from actually committing it.
BODY
1. One major way to prevent teen suicide is to talk to your teenager.
A) In the organization website of American Academy of Pediatrics www.aap.org in a 1996 article is states that you should always speak to the teenager and always remind them that you love and care for them and don’t be scared to use the word suicide
B) In another article dated 2006 from New York Amsterdam News according to authors Williams and Armstrong who are part of the centers of disease control also stresses the fact that family members or friends should talk to the teenager and not wait for the teenager to come up to them to talk about it because around that time it would be too late.
C) In the New York Amsterdam News Article it states that if you do speak to the teenager it shows you are aware of there problems and you care for them even thou sometimes the person can feel indifferent.
(Transition: Now that we talked about one major way too prevent teen suicide which is speak to the teen, lets talk about another way to prevent teen suicide removing all lethal weapons, chemicals, and supplements.)
2) Another major way to prevent teen suicide is removing all lethal weapons from the teenagers reach.
A) In the organization website of American Academy of Pediatrics the article states that another step to preventing teen suicide is to remove all deadly weaponry when you have a suicidal teen. This includes any fire arms, pills, kitchen utensils and ropes. In the article it also states that male teens are more prone to using fire arms to commit suicide while females usually use pills.
B) In the Nursing article dated December 2006 written by Nursing faculty Murphy and Kathryn state when a suicidal teen has any access to a gun that gun becomes a lethal solution for there problems and would use that gun to commit suicide. The article also states that the gun is the most common weapon used in America to commit suicide between teens and adult. In 2001 54% of teens committed suicide with a gun
(Transition: Now that we talked about teen suicide and the importance of removing weapons to prevent it lets talk about how seeking immediate help can prevent teen suicide.)
3) A major way to prevent teen suicide is to seek help from a professional.
A) In the organization website of American Academy of Pediatrics the article says to seek professional help either from a therapist or in the article’s case the teenagers pediatrician so they can guide you and the teenager to the right direction.
B) Also the article explains that seeking for professional help can lead to a lot of outpatient treatments for the teenager so it can help him more and if necessary there are hospital based treatment programs available for the troubled teen.
C) In the New York Amsterdam News Article it says to get immediate help for the teen, he/she or the parent/friend can call the National Suicide Helpline which is 1-800-SUICIDE. All calls are confidential so the teen doesn’t feel uncomfortable and could get that help right away and save his/her life.
D) For the Nursing article they have three different types of medical help one being behavioral therapy, this is when the therapist helps the patient it being the suicidal teen identify is regular reaction to certain things in life and ultimately change his way in thinking that certain way there for changing his emotional response because behavioral therapy is the belief that emotions are learned to response which helps the patient. The other type is Psychotherapy which it pretty basic they link up certain trauma or abuse the teenager has gone through that would make him want to kill themselves and they resolve the whole thing though much easier said then done. The last is medication for the deeply depressed teens that do need these antidepressant so they do fall back to there suicidal phase.
CONCLUSION
1) To recap everything I have just said there many different ways to help your teen during these hard times when dealing with thoughts of suicide but the three major effective ways to prevent your teens from committing suicide is to talk to them, remove all dangerous items for the mean time and to get professional help.
2) I cant stress this enough thoughts of suicide is a disease that we can prevent our teens from having but we must all put in our part whether you be a friend or parent or acquaintance please help the teen or inform someone cause it won’t go away on it’s own.
Any questions?
Reference List
Mullen, P.E., et. al., “The Long-term Impact of the Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Abuse of Children: A Community Study,” Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 7-21, 1996 (Pergamon)
Friday, J.C., Ph.D., “The Psychological Impact of Violence in Underserved Communities,” Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1995, pp. 403-409.
Murphy, Kathryn Nursing Article; Dec2005, Vol. 35 Issue 12, p43-45, 3p
Williams, Armstrong New York Amsterdam News Article; 1/5/2006, Vol. 97 Issue 2, p13-13, 1/3p
American Academy of Pediatrics http://www.aap.org/advocacy/childhealthmonth/prevteensuicide.htm 1996
