ABSTRACT
New York, June 17, 1992, The New York Times:
An 8-year-old boy: "Sometivies when I'm really upset, I say I will shoot myself. When my brother gets on me, I feel like dying."
A 10-year-old boy: "I think about dying a lot. I thought of hurting myself, cutting my wrist. I think about how it's going to be when I die. It keeps coming back."
Adults commonly dismiss such talk as foolish or fleeting notions, manipulative scare tactics or exaggerations born of immaturity. But Dr. Cynthia R. Pfeffer, a child psychiatrist at the Westchester division of Cornell University Medical Center, urges parents, teachers, health professionals and the youngster's friends to take seriously all suicidal statements by children. . . .
(p. C12)