Table 5 - Parents' Regrets

Half of the respondents expressed the wish that they had talked to their child more:

I wish I had picked up on some of the things he said and tried to discuss further.

Discussed her progression from comprehensive school to sixth form college more carefully. Talked generally more often about her life and what she felt about her future.

However, parents recognised that such talking was not easily achieved:

Although it was always difficult and you had to find the gentle road in, [I wish I'd] talked to him more to discover what he was feeling, his problems, worries, concerns.

Some of the respondents clearly felt that they should have been more challenging or confrontational in their attempts to talk:

I wish I had asked him what was wrong when he was depressed. I regret so much that I felt it important not to interfere with his life and therefore not intrude upon him if he did seem low after the break-up of the relationship for example.

As one parent noted, any such attempts might well have proved unsuccessful:

Tried to pin my son down more to discuss what was happening in his life - it may not have worked but I should have been more determined.

The second largest group of responses to this question also reflects the extent to which parents were inclined to question whether they had been sufficiently forceful or assertive on their child's behalf. Sixteen of the 46 respondents (35%) wished that they had been more insistent in attempting to access help from health care services:

I wish I had pursued the medical profession more vigorously to get help [for her].

I am convinced that if I had intervened or insisted the Health Service provide [my son] with counselling services then he would still be alive today.

A few of the responses in this group suggested that parents wished that they had been able to breach patient confidentiality:

I wish I had been more forceful in dealing with his depression as if it were cancer or similar. I wish I had gone to his psychiatrists myself, with or without my son, whatever the rules were.

However, some parents acknowledged their son's/daughter's right to confidentiality:

I wish we had been more involved with [his] doctors, but he did not wish it.... and we respect his right to be a free adult.

The third substantial group of responses to this question included thirteen comments which conveyed parents' regrets that they had not interpreted warning signs or behaviour correctly:

I wish I had been better informed, had been able to read the signs.

I wish I had had the wisdom and insights to interpret more accurately the signals he gave out. With hindsight they all make sense.

Some parents also expressed the wish that they had been more aware of the stresses imposed by particular situations such as Christmas or exams. However, they acknowledged that these periods were more likely to be identified as highly stressful if individuals' vulnerability was already established.

Smaller groups of responses to this question expressed parents' regrets that they had not spent more time with their child (nine responses) or had pressurised them about academic achievement (six responses). Some of these responses conveyed a strong sense that parents carried a heavy burden of self-blame and that they might benefit from support in carrying such feelings:

I have wished often that I had dropped everything and gone to her aid and not tried to juggle my care of her with my full-time job many miles away.

I wish I had tried harder not to make him feel pressure to achieve, conform, and please us. At the time I thought I made it clear to him and often to him that we didn't expect him to emulate his older brother but when I look at it honestly now, I think we did expect it, and he read between the lines, feeling that what we said was not truly how we felt.

Seven respondents expressed the wish that they had been with their child at the end, or been able to resolve family conflicts before they died.

Wish we hadn't rowed, wish I had kissed him goodbye, wish I had hugged him and told him I loved him, on that last night.

These feelings convey a sense of legacy of guilt and loss and a need for relevant and on-going support, although, as phrased, the question did ask the respondents to focus on their own omissions. It needs to be acknowledged that while many parents in this position may feel themselves to have responsibility, their opportunities to influence their child's decision may have been extremely limited. Hindsight does not always recognise the limitations on intervention experienced by the surrounding actors in a crisis.

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