From both of these pieces there was an underlying them of lack of awareness, understanding and work done around youth mental health. The first article brought forth the lack of resources in addressing youth suicide especially now when it has been rising and is at it's highest. Themes of this that stood out to me were the reality of who young children are when they start facing suicidal ideations. I will admit this is was something I was unaware of the fact that there a children as young or younger than ten dealing with this or dying by suicide. Though from that what stuck out to me was the treatment around it and who children's issues were addressed. It was clear that everyone especially often the parents wanted it to be something else. The diagnosis it a behavioral disorder, ODD and others without every bringing up anxiety or depression as the many thing. From that what stood out in the article was the struggle children face when working through internal neurological and developmental then mixed with external factors. Many of the kids mentioned in the article had serious traumas that were impacting their lives and nothing was being done to address it even when the parents were trying. I think people have a hard time accepting that children face things and now are facing them younger and younger and because of that not much is being done to really help them work through those things at these young ages.
Similar themes as from the first article were present in the one about self-cutting. The many one being there is not much work being done to address the core of these behaviors for children instead their denial of what these acts mean for youth and instead the behavior is pushed off or labeled and addressed incorrectly. I really liked that this piece addressed that their is often a separation between self-harming and suicide because I think to often people connect them and as in the first article especially with youth their is a fear around addressing suicide. So to separate them is a good first step one can do to be able to truly see the behavior. Secondly the piece showed that there are many forms of self-harm which serve individuals in a variety of ways. For carol in the piece it was an outlet for her emotions especially anger. Knowing all this the piece gave us better methods and interventions for working with youth exhibiting these behaviors. Like in the first article it is a mix of not pushing things of, misdiagnosing or denying its happening but really working with the youth to understand what and why they engage in the behavior and from there working to strengthen things outside of the acts to gradual move control away from the behavior and back to the individual and their strengths.