Emotional Intelligence | Stevehein.com

Teen Prisoners

Extensive work done in the field of teen suicide prevention has made it clear that one way to help prevent youth suicide is to change the laws which restrict young people's freedom to leave unhealthy environments. In many countries, when a person is under the age of 18 they are not legally free to make changes in their living or educational environments, even when such changes are in their own health and survival interests.

Many teenagers in the world today are not free to do a wide variety of things, simply because of their age. They have committed no crime, yet their freedom is restricted in many ways.

For example,

They are not free to choose where they live. They are not free to choose who they live with, what home or what country they live in. If they leave without parental consent, they can be forcibly returned by the police.

They are not free to choose whether they wish to attend schools, which schools to attend or how they get their education.

They are not free to choose who they have friendships with or where they receive emotional support. Their parents can prevent them from making such choices through various means.

They are not free to travel. In most countries a young person cannot get a passport without a parent's signature until the age of 18. (Note about safe travel for young people.)

Suicidal teens, in particular, need more freedom than they have. They are obligated to live in emotionally unsupportive, unhealthy environments, and are not free to leave these environments.

They may not want to go to schools where they are often humiliated, laughed at, bullied, invalidated, threatened, and punished. Yet they are legally forced to go. Or in some cases, depending on the country and individual situation, their parents impose home-schooling, when the young person would rather learn in a place where they can make friends and share ideas, experiences and beliefs.

The majority of young people around the world are not free to choose where they want to learn. If a young person said "I would rather spend 6 or 8 hours a day in the public library or learning on line," they would mostly likely be told that is not an option.

In some countries, once they have entered the school, they are not allowed to leave, even for a short break, without permission from a school authority or parent.

In some schools in the world, for example, in Thailand, Indonesia, and various countries in South America teenagers are literally locked in. There are walls or fences around the schools, and the doors and gates are locked and have security guards making sure no students leave. It is not just a matter of not allowing outsiders in for security reasons, but it is also an issue of not allowing the students out. In fact, it is difficult to know the real motives for the locks.

Here is just one picture of a school in Peru, with a close up of the lock. It is believed there are many other schools around the world where the students are locked in.

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Each country has different laws but the majority have some laws restricting the freedom of teens. Freedom to leave an emotionally unhealthy home or school could mean the difference between life and death for a suicidal teen.

Safe Travel

In the past there were no organized, established systems to protect young people when travelling away from their parents. Now, however there are networks such as Couchsurfing which use real-life references that could be a model for a safe system. In America, caring individuals once set up the Underground Railroad to help protect slaves and get them safely to freedom in healthier environments. Now it would be possible to set up legal systems to help teenagers find healthy and safe places to live and learn.