Japan struggles to deal with child suicides

This problem will never be resolved in Japanese schools as long as Japanese teachers walking out of classes and leaving no supervision at all for long lengths of time.

This is a useless article. There isn't a single statistic in here and it uses weasel words like, "a spate of them". How many is a spate? It implies a lot, but without actually providing the reader with any basis to make a decision. Then the writer goes on to talk about, "the suicide of children continues unabated, year after year". No mention of whether there has been an increase, but the implication after "spate" is that it's a growing problem.

Then the author has the gall to do a 180 and imply that parents are over-reacting and that children copy-catting because of media coverage is the source of the problem, without any apparent awareness that it is precisely this sort of article, one lacking any real facts and that leaves far too much to the imagination that is the core of the problem.

Yes, child suicide is awful, but spreading misinformation and hysteria about it is not the responsible thing to do.

goddog at 08:13 AM JST - 31st December This problem will never be resolved in Japanese schools as long as Japanese teachers walking out of classes and leaving no supervision at all for long lengths of time.

"Long lengths of time"? How long precisely? As far as I know the teachers are out of the classes for less than 10 minutes between classes while they move from one class to another (and sometimes they take a couple of minutes to down a cup of coffee and pick lesson materials). That's hardly a long time, and it is NOT the teachers' fault that they can't magically teleport between classes. If parents are so concerned about safety then they should either pony up the cash to hire babysitters to sit in the class between classes, or come into the school on a rota themselves and supervise the classes between lessons. Teachers teach. That's their job. There is a small element of discipline, but they lack the authority to do anything by say, "Johnny, please stop kicking Timmy in the nuts, and put down those scissors.".

'Reflexively fixing blame entirely on the schools distracts attention from other factors that are often involved – family problems, emotional problems, perhaps flaws in society as a whole. It’s a disservice to truth that has potentially corrosive consequences.'--I think this is true. Generally, it seems when I read about a child suicide the pattern goes something like this--child may have been bullied, teachers were not aware there was a problem, principal apologizes, case closed.

As with any suicide there are usually many factors involved; both internal and external. Japanese youth are not taught how to deal with stress and they are taught not to express feelings that show weakness. They have to face tests and entrance exams that could decide their whole future and they are likely ostracized if they stick out from the group in any way.

Children are especially vulnerable to influences around them, too. Their parents, other adults, media and they will imitate behavior that they see. When there are 30,000 adults committing suicide every year is it so shocking to see that kids are doing the same.

Suicide is not only environmentally caused. There are also other elements at play too. Many Japanese don't sleep enough and a lot of research has shown that inadequate sleep makes it harder to to deal with stress. Also a lot of people don't go outside enough and research also shows that vitamin D deficiency can lead to depression.

There should be a more thoroughly analysis of the physiological causes that contribute to suicide, not just environmental causes like bullying.

Frungy, a "spate" is midway between a "smidgen" and a "deluge."

Children in any society inhabit an extremely narrow world and suffer from a severe lack of perspective. Perhaps that these two factors also apply to Japan in general exacerbates the problem. Speaking from experience as a parent, I advise all parents to emphasize to their children how large the world is, how long time is, and how valuable life is. You can't depend on the schools for that.

goddog is absolutely correct this time! Children are not robots, as the industry may prefer. Take a lesson from some on-line schools like eScholar Academy in Red Bluff, CA. All children are equal, regardless of their goals, desires to learn and abilities. Just let students know that their future is our goal, that they don't have to meet our parents expectations, and that teachers support their individual goals. Life is good, find a passion and follow it.

children should feel safe attending school. I was bullied when I went to grade school, and there wasn't any teacher around to prevent it. The bullies need to be indentified and receive help to stop this terrible behavior. It would be interesting to see a report on bullies themselves. Might be very telling how they got that way.

123,000 died in Japan last year than were born; the most since 1947. The country is in systemic decline and may never recover. Childhood suicide, the low birth rate and abortion are linked. These all impact the psyche of the child. Since children generally represent hope and optimism for the future, what is the message to children in this culture?

This article fails to even mention the crushing pressure on kids to succeed in Japan. You are deemed a “failure” unless you get into a good school. Suicide has always been an acceptable way out in Japan for adults. With kids required to handle adult pressures at a younger age, no wonder they take their own lives without social mechanisms in place to uphold the worth of the individual beyond superficial values based on academic achievements.

Japlan - Part of the problem is that Japan is over-populated. It's going to be painful in some ways but getting back to 80,000,000 or so from today's 127,000,000 should help to lead to a more human environment.

Japlan - More deaths than births is a logical consequence of the aging population. Trying to blame it on childhood suicides (precise statistics aren't easily available, but it's less than 100 in the 123 000 net population decline) is wrong. Abortion and low birth rate are both choices that women make regarding their own reproductive freedom and their own bodies, and taking shots at womens' rights to do what they want with their bodies is ridiculous.

Moderator: Back on topic please.

The school does share at least part of the blame, but yeah the media does like to oversimplify. That said, the most important thing they can do is expel students who have a pattern of bullying. It eliminates the source of the problem and a lot of would be copycats, so everyone can focus on school. It's not just going to help the kids who commit suicides.

The other thing which is not proven but common sense is to teach children about bullying and get them to work together on it. It's counter-intuitive to human nature, but some schools have programs like this and claim they work. Why not try it out, if there's a real possibility they could work. Again, not proven but better than doing nothing.

Let's not get carried away here about population declines. White people are in decline as well. Many European countries and especially the USA are in constantly decline in white population - it's the immigrants who are having the babies. So let's not be so quick to gloat over the Japanese thinking our own population increase means we're good.

bdiego at 12:01 PM JST - 3rd January The school does share at least part of the blame, but yeah the media does like to oversimplify. That said, the most important thing they can do is expel students who have a pattern of bullying.

The school normally receives a disproportionate portion of the blame, and actually they have the least power to solve the problem. Bdiego, you suggested that schools expel bullying students, but they simply don't have the power to do that in most cases. Children in elementary and junior high school have a legal right to schooling and the school is not legally allowed to expel them.

What most people don't consider is that in most cases bullying happens when there are no witnesses other than the bullies and the bullied student. In those cases who do you believe? The Politically Correct answer would be to take the word of the allegedly bullied student over that of the accused bullies, but that is neither fair nor legally defensible, and at the end of the day most teachers have to settle for warnings and increased vigilance, but they can't be everywhere at once. 1 teacher, 40 students, some of whom are in the bathroom, in the corridors, in the classroom... think about it for a second and you'd realise that blaming the teacher for not being in 3 or 4 locations at once is deeply unfair and frankly idiotic.

So yes, the school does carry a portion of the blame, but it's a tiny fraction of the blame, and unless there's proof that the teacher witnessed bullying and did nothing (as opposed to getting unverified reports of bullying, which is what happens in most cases) then the teacher and school really can't do much.

really the kids just need a smack across the bottom and disaplined and told properly what is right or wrong (im not being cruel really, just it never did me any harm). also the other part is that schools dont like to admit there is bullying.

Face the facts, Japan school system cannot change their ways and will continue to have same suicide problem even decades from now unless they implement drastic changes. The young adults bullying these children is more about power and control and they do not feel they are doing anything wrong. If the bullyinng continues, they should identify the bully and school administrators should force these kids to see a counselor who understands psycology of bullies. Most teachers are clueless on signs of problems. However, they should learn the warning signs and forward to upper adminstrators and inform their parents of the potential problems before it gets any worse.

The reason for these child suicides is because at first, they are all being pushed way too hard by their parents to accomplish the things that their parents want them to accomplish and not themselves. The second thing is because the kids of today in Japan are spoiled rotten and are not disciplined by their parents because most of the parents of Japan today are just as bad as their kids when it comes to thinking in a correct way. As of the teachers in Japan, I would say that most of them are way to coward and are not wiling to make changes to the way that they teach because if they do, they will probably be reprimanded by their superiors for thinking out of the box. Japan has to face these facts and be willing to make changes if they really want to stop child suicides.

bdiego said "especially the USA are in constantly decline in white population - it's the immigrants who are having the babies". This is very true and they call it "The Browing of America". There are numerous problems with imigration in America and most of which is illegal. Mexicans illegally migrate to do farm work and many of them drop what are called "Anchor Babies" since this child has been born in America it is entitled to 18 years of free schooling and health care. America's educational system is burdened with this problem. As far as child suicides go...when I was child 10-13 years old I comtemplated it yet obviously I made it. My father never gave any guidance and my stepmother was the reason for these feelings. There is more than just being bullied at school. Many will not listen to the accusation's of a child and believe it to be nonsense. So as a child..some have no one to turn to. It has already been said that the younger generation has adult responsibilities placed upon them and have a hard time dealing with this because fo their age.