<p>RESTON, Virginia (CNN) -- William Kim still calls the cell phone of his son, a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Tech, just to hear his voice. He feels cheated out of a chance to save his only boy.</p>
<p>Daniel Kim, 21, was a senior at Virginia Tech who had fallen into a deep depression after last year's massacre.</p>
<p>His son, Daniel Kim, wasn't a victim of last year's massacre that left 32 students and professors dead. His son committed suicide eight months later after falling into a deep depression....</p>
<p>"They treated it like some kind of joke," William Kim said of the way the university handled his son's warning signs.</p>
<p>In fact, one of Kim's friends from another state had e-mailed the Virginia Tech health center with the subject line: "Emergency About Suicidal Student."....</p>
<p>The e-mail was sent at 3:58 a.m. on November 5, 2007. </p>
<p>University protocol states that a suicidal person needs to see the "psychologist on call," but that never happened. Instead, Virginia Tech passed on the information to the Blacksburg police, who at 11:45 a.m. that day showed up at Kim's doorstep for what police records show was a "welfare check," what school officials call a "wellness check."...</p>
<p>Barrons, this at the end of the story may answer your question. Seems like the parents may not have known, and it’s possible that the victim’s friends who informed Va Tech that he was suicidal didn’t also inform his parents.</p>
<p>“The dad says his son had not exhibited depression previously. In addition, the father said Virginia Tech never shared the emergency e-mail with him until it was too late.”</p>
<p>I understand that college aged kids need to learn independance, etc. But, overwhelmingly, it seems that these are such critical years, esp with stress levels of college life. It is a much different world today. Parents need to be in touch with their students on a very <em>regular</em> basis. Even if that college kid does not want to talk, sometimes a quick “how are you, just checking in with you, hope your day is going well” kind of call can mean a world of difference in some of these kids day to day lives. Yes, I know all about the fact that they are 18 and legally considered adults. But, I think we as parents are sometimes too quick to think that they are 18 and carefree. Bottom line, it is ultimately our responsibility as parents (and esp if we are paying that tuition bill) to keep in touch with our students. I certainly do not expect the colleges to do this. We do–just my 2 cents!</p>
<p>PS–I certainly do no know all of the circumstances regarding this individual and in no way intend to pass judgment. But, I have witnessed MANY parents that are not in touch with their students.</p>
<p>I think that we parents also need to let their own kids know that calling a depressed student’s parents or telling their own about of concern for that student’s welfare is not somehow ratting them out. There is a deeply ingrained cultural taboo against ratting on another kid, even ones they don’t particularly like. Kids need to know stories like this so that they can feel OK about intervening if needed.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, however, the student’s friends did quite a lot in informing the student’s school about his being suicidal. I can understand fully that those friends would have expected that the school would act appropriately, especially considering the tragedy that occurred at Va Tech last year.</p>
<p>Tragic. With all of the privacy acts, Va Tech was not likely to notify parents as this student was 21. He could have hid it from his parents. The friends who notified Va Tech may have not wanted to “tell” his parents. </p>
<p>I’d like to know what happened after the visit from police. Did VT think that by notifying the police it let them off the hook? Was there any other F/U? Did he get a referral for any mental health counseling? Not throwing stones, but would like a more complete story. Not that I have any right to those facts… But it would give a more complete tale.</p>
<p>The friends might have had no way to inform the parents. It looks like the friend was an ‘online friend’ living in another state. I doubt he would have known how to contact the parents.</p>
<p>I wonder what the police report from the initial contact says.</p>
<p>I only saw leaders for the CNN show about this tragic young man, but something to think about is that the very responsible sender of the warning e-mail was not a “friend” as you or I might first imagine. </p>
<p>In his depression, Kim spent time on “WOW” (World of Warfare?) and revealed his thoughts there in an open manner, all the while secluding himself from real-life contacts (was afraid he’d be mistaken as the Asian shooter from the previous year).
His sister told him he didn’t look anything like that guy, but he still skulked around under a baseball cap and finally stopped attending classes, which his father picked up by phone. </p>
<p>The RPI student who picked up on the typed warnings reached out to notify VT, and interviewed by TV as a very thoughtful communicator, indicated by his letter as well (readable as a sidebar in the OP’s link). If I recall right, he also did a followup phone call to VT when they didn’t reply to him, and was told they were “handling” it…</p>
<p>My thought is as adults (and university officials are adults) we’re missing the boat when we think that a tip from an online game’s side chat room is automatically not “as good” as a telephone call or a real-life friend standing in front of our desks. </p>
<p>The sharing those 2 kids did on WOW revealed plenty enough info for a university to investigate. I suppose sending the police over to his doorstep exonerates them, but my learning from this is that we need to respect where kids do reveal their thoughts to each other, and take even WOW seriously, if guns or suicide are discussed like they were. </p>
<p>I think the tip-off RPI student was dismissed because the kids shared on-line, and that’s not a contemporary understanding of kids’ communication patterns.</p>
<p>this is tragic and frankly unconscionable–we do teach our kids to take suicide threats seriously and report them and then the school drops the ball. yes they sent the police which may have been the best INITIAL intervention but why not have the psychologist at the health center reach out to the student shortly thereafter. and there is no excuse for not informing parents–I am a mental health professional and when there is a life threatening situation there is no reason to worry about privacy over safety. we need to help colleges see this is their job–to actually help these students at risk. It is the right thing to do and needs to be addressed with students at orientation–“if you express or someone reports that you are a threat to yourself or others we will offer support you and assist you in locating appropriate care and will notify parents, and/or other responsible adult that you indicate.” How hard is this to do and what reasonable kid would object?</p>
<p>p.s. the young man who sent the email truly did the right thing and should be told so, I see he even called the school to follow up. amazingly another missed opportunity for the school to ask more questions, assess the caller’s credibility, ask to see the writings from the suicidal student. I find this situation chilling given what occurred there earlier. (also missed opportunities to intervene IMO)</p>
<p>I saw this story on a television show. Frankly, the spokesperson for VT said that proper protocol was followed with respect to this case. The spokesperson would not go into detail about this specific case. She had a smirk on her face while discussing this and I found it offensive. This is far from a laughing matter, and the smirk might have been from nervousness, but I did feel that she was cold. She seemed to have a little memorized script, and it all seemed quite unfeeling to me. I did not read this article, but did you know that the family is still receiving mailings from VT since their son died? This was discussed on TV by his sister. His name was not removed from the VT system, and he would have graduated this year, so the mail about graduation just kept on coming.</p>
<p>northeastmom–I am floored–I found the Vtech tragedy so sad as there were opportunities to intervene–I cannot fathom that at an institution of higher learning the administration at Virginia Tech did not seem to learn from the first tragedy.</p>
<p>“I think that we parents also need to let their own kids know that calling a depressed student’s parents or telling their own about of concern for that student’s welfare is not somehow ratting them out. There is a deeply ingrained cultural taboo against ratting on another kid”</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call a fellow student’s parents unless I knew them well, on top of knowing the student well. That’s because I don’t know what role they played in causing the student’s trauma. The most awful emotional crisis within my circle of acquaintance in college involved a student who was “outed” to his conservative, immigrant family, many of whom disowned him. If any of his friends had made a well-meaning call to tell his family that their son/nephew was not only gay but also having a nervous breakdown…it would have thrown gasoline on the fire.</p>
<p>lindz, I think that they learned from this tragedy, but it just was not enough, IMO. VT felt that they followed their protocol, and that is the script that their spokesperson stuck with. In the meantime, somebody’s brother and somebody’s son is now dead.</p>
<p>I am wondering if the whole Va Tech administration isn’t still so traumatized from last year’s slaughter that the staff can’t respond appropriately to students.
Otherwise, how they seem to have responded to this student doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>Not directly related, but I read an article about the mental health counselors at one of our large publics, and the staff there was saying the need for mental health services at colleges has skyrocketed in recent years. They were distraught that they did not have the staff or approved funding to even begin keeping up with the demand. I forget the reasons they cited for the spike in their case load, but you can probably surmise much of it just from surfing around on CC.</p>
<p>The point is that many schools may not be staffed or equipped to respond the way they need to be in order to avoid tragic incidents such as these. I don’t think this is solely a VT issue.</p>
<p>hanna-- you make a point that there could be difficulties in the family–and if that is known or you are concerned about that there are always other options to reach out to someone</p>
<p>I know that if I became aware of a child at risk of harming themselves or others I would intervene directly and/or call the parents–but only regarding his mental state, why would the issue of his sexual identity need to be shared w parents or anyone, that would not be necessary or helpful obviously–I would certainly say that he is in need of care so he doesn’t hurt himself.</p>
<p>couple of years back my s shared w me that a friend of his joked about killing herself when IM’ing–I let him know I was glad he told me, that even if she said it jokingly it should still be looked into. I told him I felt I needed to share this with her mom–which made him uncomfortable but I educated him and that became a learning-- I did call this mom and she was grateful I did–the girl admitted to her mom that she was struggling and though not imminently suicidal then she was cutting herself/depressed. Less than a year later she told her mom directly of serious suicidal thinking and the mom took action–she was very briefly hospitalized–the mom and girl told me that my addressing it as I did helped them both to talk openly about the depression and suicidal feelings that had worsened over time. and my son got it at that later time–when she came out of the hospital he was comfortable treating her as he always had while offering his support to her. (the mom told me no other friends had a clue about how to handle so said nothing).</p>