Florida School Toolkit for K-12 Educators to Prevent Suicide

After the student is more successful, he or she will be able to transfer to a college that may have been one of his or her top choices. The school district in Palo Alto, California, has wrestled with whether they should have zero hour. When I was there, I asked, “What is zero hour?” and I was told it was an opportunity to go to school an hour before everyone else and take an extra AP class. My advice was to do away with zero hour, therefore lessening some of the academic pressure on students. They initially eliminated it. However, zero hour is now back because parents with extremely high academic expectations for their children wanted them to be able to get an extra AP class into their schedule. I believe this was a very unfortunate decision. I am obviously looking at the total well-being of our students and recommend when possible to lessen the academic pressure. Some thoughts for the school and community are the following: Can we make certain that the various academic departments, especially at the high school level, don’t all give homework on the same night? For example, maybe Tuesday night is the English department; Thursday night is math, and so forth. A second suggestion would be to create a forum to allow students to log in to record the amount of time they are spending on nightly homework. A parent and school committee could examine the number of hours spent on homework and make recommendations that could lessen some of the academic pressure. Perhaps your child is so anxious about a test in his or her class tomorrow and you noted he or she didn’t eat well or sleep well, or they were up all night studying for the exam. Or perhaps he or she is telling you he or she can’t go to school today because he or she is not ready for that important test. As a parent, you know your child the best, and if there is a consistent pattern of these behaviors, please don’t hesitate to get professional help for your child and share concerns about academic expectations with your child’s school administration. 15. How do you walk the line between your child’s privacy and freedom and keeping them safe? I t is certainly a challenge in giving your child privacy and balancing your right to know and your concerns about their safety. It has been said that some adolescents are leading secret lives with regards to sex, drugs, and other dangerous behaviors. I have a couple of key thoughts on this. One: I am a fan of a family desktop computer, although you will notice that when your teenager uses that computer, the websites they will be visiting and the comments they will be posting will be significantly different when you are going in and out of the room where that computer is housed. Unfortunately, many parents “gave away the farm” when they gave their children access to largely unsupervised technology in elementary school. It is then hard to make changes later. If your child already has a laptop, then the kitchen counter or family room or dining room table needs to become their workspace and not their bedroom. In particular, I am extremely concerned about a laptop that contains a camera. Sexting has become a very severe problem for young people in this country. Most students are not aware that sending a picture of themselves nude to a classmate in some states can be prosecuted, not as a misdemeanor, but as a felony. I also know that sexting, and being severely humiliated, and being taunted and teased by everyone at school for the picture that was sent out, not realizing it would be shared with everyone, was certainly a contributing factor to some tragic suicides of young people. If you have a number of concerns about your child’s behavior choices, then I believe you need to do a little snooping of their online behavior, diaries, and journals. I would also highly recommend finding a shared time that your child will talk to you. I realize parents are extremely busy, but we have to make sure there are at least a few times each week when we are 147