When students leave home to go away to college, it can be months before their parents see them again. And this time away, mixed with the various stressors that can occur while at school, can make it easy for serious mental health problems to go unseen, especially depression. This is what happened to the Kim family. Their son Daniel, a Virginia Tech student, completed suicide in 2007, and all the family received as a warning from the school was an email from its health center.
Kim’s father, William, said that by the time the family was notified by the email, it was too late for them to help their son. This is why, in a settlement with Virginia Tech, the family has also included an agreement requiring the school to notify the parents of potentially suicidal students, unless there is a documented reason not to.
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Source: AP
Heather Rudow is a staff writer for Counseling Today. Email her at hrudow@counseling.org.