There is Marco (not his real name), who at the age of 15 decides to hang himself after, apparently, a misunderstanding with his parents.. Eat He knows, another fake name who jumps under the subway after seemingly being disappointed in love. Eat Robertoalways a fictitious name that flies into the void, leaving no explanation.
There are fictitious names, there are “seems” and “seems” that fill the pages of crime news.. There are always descriptions of friends, classmates and even parents and relatives. There are always unanswered questions, requests for help and a general invitation to ensure that such tragedies never happen again.
There are always the same things, the same features, painting a picture that changes and at the same time remains the same.: the name changes, the gesture changes, but everything always remains in place, without any attempt, this is the real first step towards preventing this picture from being visible and occupying the news pages no longer.
The IRCCS Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital a few days ago published data on hospitalizations registered due to suicide attempts: 387 in the last year.. In 2011 there were 12. In 2018 there were 237. Continuous, constant, impressive growth, accelerated by Covid.
Telefono Amico Italia, an association founded in the 1960s that listens to and supports those experiencing difficulties and living alone, has published equally impressive data.. In the first six months of 2023 alone, there were 3,700 calls for help. 26% of these requests come from young people under the age of 26. If we consider only the chat channel, then 19% of requests came from teenagers. But it’s not hard to imagine that there are many other requests left in the guys’ heads, in draft messages that were never sent or in some posts on social networks.
Gloomy picturewhich becomes even more difficult to bear and accept when you think that only in Rome’s Bambina Gesu every day (every day!) at least four boys were urgently hospitalized due to mental problems.and that there were 544 admissions to secure neuropsychiatry units last year alone. Problems often associated with self-harm have escalated dramatically in recent years and have risen sharply as a result of the traumatic experience of the pandemic.
Cold, sick, depressing numbers. Numbers that keep coming back to the fore in newspapers and television news, and then return to that fixed and unchanging picture, waiting for the next update. Coldness, which represents a human and social tragedy, a defeat for the entire society. Why if a teenager decides to commit such an extreme gesture, everyone without exception bears responsibility.
Who teaches children about the future today? Who gives them hope? Who helps them cope with the everyday problems that are typical at this age, but which may be even more difficult to cope with in 2023 and after two years of the pandemic? Who gives them confidence that there can always be a solution? Who really listens to them?
We live in an overwhelming present, and often we adults are the first to capitulate.. We, who should be an example and a listener, often find ourselves on the wrong side of the comparison: no more teachers, no more solid and firm positions, no more confidence. No more reasoning or thinking, just disinterest.
It’s easy to think that in 2023, when everything is just a click away and everything is accessible, there won’t be any problems.or, better yet, that there is a solution to everything, and that they are the first who are able and empowered to find it. This is the mistake: thinking that a teenager already has all the tools and means to find his place in the world, to decipher a world that is incomprehensible even to those who have long become adults, that all the answers are within reach. . Instead, we should listen more, understand them more deeply, go beyond appearances and give ourselves, firstly, the means and tools to allow them to understand life, the difficulties, problems, obstacles it presents every day and perhaps at 16 they seem impassable.
We need a real, real, concrete prevention system, covering schools and parents, teachers and educators, psychologists and medical institutions, associations and training courses.. We need to do this now, otherwise next year we will read more stories with fictitious names and blanch in the face of heartbreaking numbers, only to then turn the page and return to everyday life.
Where did the bill on the Institute of School Psychologist, which was also supported by ScuolaZoo, go? acting as a representative of the thousands of requests and reports received during the pandemic, and who also had the support of almost all political forces present in Parliament? Where is prevention in school programs of the new year? Where is the investment in this sense that the PNRR could also contribute to?
We must take collective responsibility to protect our youth and their future.with the goal of no longer finding fictitious names for tragedies, always different and always the same.
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