The need to maintain communication was the advice most frequently offered by parents. The respondents stressed the importance of being accessible and listening:

....Always be ready to talk and be there. Listen very carefully to what they say....

Parents giving these responses often linked the need for open communication with the importance of being non-judgemental:

....keep lines of communication open at whatever level seems possible. Try not to be judgemental....

Table 7. Advice for Other Parents Responding to Suicidal Intentions

The other frequent message for other parents was the need to access professional help. Many of these responses conveyed the need to be assertive in doing so:

Keep pursuing the medical profession for help.

Try not to acquiesce in the pervasive climate of opinion which maintains that the despair of a son or daughter over the age of 17 is no concern of yours: the suggestion that suicide cannot be prevented. Lobby institutions, be a nuisance, make a fuss - even if it leads professionals to condemn and resent you....

A further eight parents commented on the value of accessing help from someone outside the immediate family:

Parents are probably too close to the child and their deep issues and may not be in the best position to help. Try to find someone else who can .?

Eleven parents noted the importance of seeking support or advice for oneself, as a parent, when a son or daughter was actively suicidal:

Parents need guidance from psychologists / psychiatrists / counsellors themselves on how to best deal with the situation ....

These warnings to take young people seriously and trust instincts reiterate themes identified previously. Whilst three respondents advised other parents to maintain a constant vigilance, six stressed the need for a balance and noted that parents cannot take total responsibility for their adult children:

....Realise that when you've done all you can it is really out of your hands - you can't be with them all the time.

The two types of advice most frequently mentioned by parents concerned the need to maintain communication (cited by two-thirds of the parents) and the importance of accessing professional help (identified by nearly half the group). Taken together, these themes emphasise the need for supportive and non-judgemental parental intervention to be backed up by professional help.

It is a matter of concern that parents clearly felt that it was necessary to be assertive and persistent in order to access such help for a suicidal young person. The other main issue identified by the responses to this question concerned parents' own needs for support and advice.

In view of the difficulties they appear to have experienced in contacting health professionals, the need for an advocate might also be inferred. However, the diversity of the respondents' views was also evident in these responses with a small number of parents recommending constant vigilance while others emphasised that parents could not assume full responsibility for their child's behaviour.

© University of Hull and PAPYRUS
October 2001

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