Suicidal behavior in children and adolescents

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Suicidal behavior is an action intended to harm oneself and includes suicide gestures, suicide attempts, and completed suicide. Suicidal ideation is thoughts and plans about suicide. Suicide attempts are acts of self-harm that could result in death, such as hanging or drowning.

A stressful event may trigger suicide in children who have a mental health disorder such as depression.
Children at risk of suicide may be depressed or anxious, withdraw from activities, talk about subjects related to death, or suddenly change their behavior.
Family members and friends should take all suicide threats or attempts seriously.
Health care practitioners try to determine how serious the risk of suicide is.
Treatment may involve hospitalization if the risk is high, drugs to treat other mental health disorders, and individual and family counseling.

(See also Suicidal Behavior in adults.)
Suicide is rare in children before puberty and is mainly a problem of adolescence, particularly between the ages of 15 and 19, and of adulthood. However, preadolescent children do commit suicide, and this potential problem must not be overlooked.
In the United States, suicide is the second or third leading cause of death in adolescents. It results in 2,000 deaths per year. It is also likely that a number of the deaths attributed to accidents, such as those due to motor vehicles and firearms, are actually suicides.
Many more young people attempt suicide than actually succeed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided the following information about high school students in the United States in 2015:

17% of high school students seriously considered attempting suicide in the previous year.
13% made a suicide plan in the previous year.
8% of students attempted suicide one or more times in the previous year.
29% of lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) students attempted suicide at least once in the previous year compared with 6% of heterosexual high school students.

Frequently, suicide attempts involve at least some ambivalence about wishing to die and may be a cry for help.
Among adolescents in the United States, boys outnumber girls in completed suicide by more than 4 to 1. However, girls are 2 to 3 times more likely to attempt suicide.