Gabrielle Carlson was ready to pull the fire alarm. It was October 2021, and Carlson, then president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, saw a world of kids in crisis: Soaring rates of depression and anxiety. Families under siege by pandemic-fueled disruptions. Dramatic increases in emergency room visits for childhood psychiatric crises.
And then there were the suicides.
Nearly 1 in 10 high school students admitted they had tried to take their own life in the previous 12 months, according to a survey published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 1 in 5 had seriously considered it.
Suicide rates among adolescents had risen nearly 53 percent between 2010 and 2020; it was now the second-leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 18. Then came the pandemic, and the lockdowns, and the isolation, and the increased reliance on virtual schooling and socializing. And everything got worse.
