A young person's suicide can shake even teens who barely knew them, raising difficult questions about death, friendship and their own vulnerability.
Although hearing that someone has died young is unbearable, the shock is somehow compounded when the death is by suicide, and its impact can reach far beyond the person's closest friends. A teenager may barely have known the student who died and still be deeply affected by the news. Suddenly, someone who sat in the same classrooms, played on the same team or appeared on the same social media feed is no longer there, and death has come frighteningly close to home.
At an age when there is still that wonderful sense of invincibility, this can be particularly unsettling. It can also bring fears that are difficult to voice. If this happened to someone my age, could it happen to me? What about my friend who's struggling with depression? How could someone be suffering so badly without everybody knowing?
And alarmingly, suicide was the second-leading cause of death among Americans aged 10 to 14 and 15 to 24 in 2023, while CDC data from 2023 show that 20% of U.S. high-school students had seriously considered attempting suicide during the previous year, while 9% had made an attempt.
So with September marking National Suicide Prevention Month in the United States, it seems a particularly important time to look at how we can help youngsters who are affected when someone they know has tragically died by suicide. That can be particularly difficult for parents who may be struggling to comprehend the death themselves, while trying to help their child make sense of it.
When “that could never happen” suddenly did
Part of the shock may be that a young person's death unsettles the comforting order we expect life to follow. Teenagers aren't supposed to die before their parents and grandparents; they're supposed to be worrying about exams, friendships, terrible haircuts and who likes whom.
A suicide can also make a teenager look differently at the people around them. If the young person who died seemed happy, popular or successful, there may be bewilderment that nobody apparently knew how much they were suffering. If they had struggled openly with depression, a teenager may begin worrying about another friend who is having a difficult time.
Those fears shouldn't be brushed away with an automatic: “Don't worry, that won't happen.” Instead, they can become an opening for conversation. What has your teen heard? What are their friends saying? Are they worried about somebody in particular? And perhaps most importantly, how has the death made them feel about their own life?
You don't need to conduct all of this across a table with the solemnity of a police interview. Teenagers often talk more freely when attention isn't entirely focused on them, so a car journey, dog walk or late-night raid on the fridge may provide a better opening than announcing that it's time for a serious conversation.
Be careful with the “why”
After a suicide, everybody wants to know why. With teenagers, rumors can provide an answer remarkably quickly: a breakup, bullying, exam pressure, family problems or something somebody supposedly said the day before. It's important not to let one event become the explanation.
In fact the reality is rarely that simple. Suicide usually cannot be traced neatly back to one event, however desperately those left behind may want an explanation. Reducing a young person's death to a failed relationship or argument can also send a frightening message to other teenagers experiencing exactly those ordinary upheavals of adolescence.
It may be more truthful to admit that we don't completely know why someone died, while explaining that severe emotional distress can affect the way a person sees both their problems and the possibility of things getting better.
However, there is another “why” that can torment young people too: “Why didn't I notice?” A message left unanswered, an argument or something said as a joke can suddenly be replayed with terrible significance. A teenager who was close to the person who died may need to hear repeatedly that they were not responsible for recognizing or curing another person's suffering.
But this question may also create a new sense of responsibility for friends who are struggling. A teenager who knows a friend is depressed might begin watching every message, silence or change in mood, terrified of missing the sign that could make all the difference. Encourage them to tell you, a teacher or another trusted adult if they're worried about someone, and remind them that being a good friend doesn't mean becoming solely responsible for keeping that person safe.
Let them grieve like teenagers
That grief may not look much like ours. A teenager can cry, disappear upstairs, come down asking what's for dinner and be laughing with friends an hour later. None of this means the death hasn't affected them.
Nor does every teenager who knew the person need to demonstrate the same degree of grief. Social media can create its own strange pressure after a death, with photographs, tributes and intensely emotional posts appearing from people with very different relationships to the person who died.
Give your child permission to feel whatever is actually theirs: sadness, anger, confusion, fear, numbness or even very little at all. And help them remember that a person's life was bigger than its ending. If they knew the teenager who died, let them talk about the funny stories and ordinary memories too. Suicide shouldn't be allowed to reach backwards and swallow an entire life.
Ask the frightening question
Parents may understandably become more watchful after a teenage suicide, particularly if their child is already struggling or was close to the person who died.
If something genuinely worries you, this isn't the moment for euphemisms. Ask directly: “Are you thinking about suicide?” -- as shared by the National Institute of Mental Health. Research shows that asking the question does not put the idea into someone's head or increase suicidal behavior. If the answer is yes, take it seriously and help your child connect immediately with appropriate professional support.
It is also worth keeping the conversation going after the initial shock has passed. The funeral ends, school resumes and social media moves on with astonishing speed, but grief and anxiety don't necessarily follow the same timetable.
And for Catholic teenagers...
There may be one more fear that a Catholic young person is reluctant to voice. What happened to them after they died?
Older ideas about suicide and damnation can linger surprisingly stubbornly, and teenagers may have picked them up from films, social media or something somebody once told them. Here the Church offers considerably more hope than they may realize.
The Catechism recognizes that grave psychological suffering can diminish a person's responsibility for suicide and explicitly tells Catholics that “we should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives.” God, it says, can provide an opportunity for repentance “by ways known to him alone,” and the Church continues to pray for those who have died this way. For a teenager confronting the suicide of someone their own age, perhaps those words matter particularly.
We cannot answer every “why,” nor can a parent promise a frightened teenager that nobody else they love will ever struggle. What we can do is make sure fear doesn't have to sit silently in their heads, remind them that asking for help is never something to be ashamed of, and keep talking long after everyone else assumes life has returned to normal.
Above all, if they loved the young person who died, we can help them continue to love and remember the whole person, rather than allowing one terrible final act to become their entire story.
