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Summer season can be dangerous, deadly for teenagers |
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Summer season can be dangerous, deadly for teenagers
Newsday, (NY), June 24, 2008
By Dave Marcus And Christine Armario
With school ending, students ease into the lazy-hazy rhythms of summer. But it's also a time of heightened danger that can end in the glaring lights of hospital emergency rooms - or worse.
Over the weekend, a Port Jefferson teen was shot to death. In Oyster Bay Cove, an 18-year-old girl was struck and killed by a car. And in Seaford, a mother and father found their teenage daughter dead at a friend's home after she failed to come home from a party.
Teenagers face increased perils this time of year, many experts say.
Among teenagers, "there tends to be more alcohol, more drugs, more circumstances of risk-taking and risk factors around graduation time," said Laurie Flynn, national director at the Columbia University TeenScreen program, a voluntary mental health program.
The reason for the summer surge is simple: Kids tend to be outdoors, unsupervised with unstructured days. High school seniors, especially, are in a transition from childhood to adulthood. Fears about leaving high school friends or coping with college can be involved in some decisions to drink alcohol, said Angela DeLessio, assistant principal at Plainview-Old Bethpage Middle School.
Citing an increase in the number of murder victims under 18 from 2004 to 2006, Ben Saunders, director of the Family and Child Program of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center in South Carolina, said a variety of reasons have been put forward, including decreased family incomes and the ongoing war.
He hesitates to draw conclusions. "The risks for youth are really things like idleness, lack of supervision, lack of meaningful activities that they engage in," Saunders said.
Locally, teens constitute a minority of all murder victims. In Suffolk County, just two teens were killed last year - Alvin Brothers, 15, who was shot on a street corner in North Bellport; and Jonathan Estrada, 17, who was stabbed in Ronkonkoma.
Both deaths occurred in the summer.
Many experts say that the vast majority of teenagers are doing fine. While teen suicides rose dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s across the country, they have leveled off.
Besides, not all of the season's troubles come from irresponsible behavior. Every summer, Sharon Nachman, professor of pediatrics at Stony Brook University, deals with adventurous, idealistic high school and college students who venture into Latin America or Africa and return with gastrointestinal illnesses, malaria or tuberculosis.
Of course, most teen problems aren't linked to seasons. Fugen Neziroglu, clinical director of the Bio-Behavioral Institute in Great Neck, said throughout the year she treats children and teens for depression, cutting and piercing - issues that rarely came up among youths when she started practicing 30 years ago.
In part, she thinks middle- and upper-class Long Island teenagers are struggling with more issues, from overwhelmed parents to pressure to get into college. But she also senses that schools are better at identifying mental health issues as they surface.
John Guthman, director of counseling services at Hofstra University, has seen a big rise in students seeking mental health counseling in the past two decades. He attributes the increase to a variety of factors, including the expansion of college health services and stress over careers and the cost of college.
"Kids have no experience managing themselves because they've been so overcontrolled," said Hara Estroff Morano of Brooklyn, author of "A Nation of Wimps," a new book about what she calls "invasive parenting."
This summer, some families may be unable to go away on vacation or afford to send their children to camp. If it's also difficult to find a summer job, some teens might find themselves bored and begin to associate with more delinquent kids and get into trouble as a result.
"The take-home message is kids can get into trouble in New York or Long Island; they can get into trouble abroad," said Nachman. "It's not possible to shelter your children."
Top Teen Killers
Leading causes of deaths among youths ages 15-17.
Figures are the rates per 100,000.
25.6 Unintentional injury
6.3 Homicide
5.9 Suicide
3.2 Cancer
Source: Department Of Health And Human Services, 2000-05
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