Suicide is more acceptable to some teenagers than drinking and driving, according to Mr Michael Ryan, who has drawn up a "Living With Change and Loss" schools programme.
He pointed to a youth survey which showed that 27 per cent of males and 23 per cent of females believed suicide was justified in some circumstances, while only 6 per cent felt drinking and driving was.
Mr Ryan advised teachers not to underestimate the pressures on today's teenagers. He told the conference that many of today's children were losing out because of the increasing institutionalisation of older people.
Because children were psychologically and geographically living apart from their grandparents, they no longer saw the natural progression of life, sickness and death.
They also lost out on the support which grandparents could offer them. When teenagers finally had to cope with a death, it had a much greater impact on them, he said.
Teenagers were also losing out because of the increasing urbanisation of society. Mr Ryan said the bonds and feeling of belonging which existed in rural society were being lost in today's urban society.
Factors such as marriage breakdown, increasing materialism and exam pressures also put pressure on teenagers. "Suicide is definitely seen as a real option by a growing number of young people," he said. The copycat nature of some suicides was highlighted by Mr David Lester, director of a New Jersey centre for the study of suicide. He said young people were particularly prone to copycat suicides.
He pointed to a case in Japan where a teenage singer jumped to her death, and this was followed by a spate of similar suicides, some from the same building. Statistics from the World Health Organisation show that suicide in the male 15-24 age group as a proportion of all suicides in Ireland has increased from 1.5 per cent in 1960 to 25.4 per cent in 1996.
