Stats SA finds a high number of adolescents’ deaths occur at home

One of the leading causes of adolescent deaths were accidents happening at home, according to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).

“In South Africa, adolescents aged 10 to 19 represent a significant proportion of the population at 17.4% and contribute to 2.1% of the total mortality,” Stats SA noted.

“The majority of external causes of morbidity and mortality are accidents that occur at home, school or other place of residence, assault, contact with an object (sharp or blunt), traffic accidents, exposure to mechanical objects such as gun shots, accidental drowning, exposure to smoke or fire, intentional selfharm and exposure to forces of nature such as lightning.”

According to the report on profiling health challenges faced by adolescents (10 to 19 years old) in SA, about 20% of teenagers have a detected or untreated mental health disorder.

Barely into her teens, Keutlwile Khunou from Pretoria said whether one was on social media or not, one would still feel the pressure.

“If it’s not social media pressure to certain things, you’re bullied because you don’t do those things,” she said.

The Citizen had parental permission to speak to Khunou.

University of Johannesburg counselling and educational psychologist Jace Pillay said family context was a major contributor to adolescents’ health and in many households, violence was used as a sense of power to exert control.

Pillay said parents and care givers were going through their own issues and were traumatised.

He said they had no time and space to accommodate adolescents and when they did, something “triggered” them off, resulting in them not knowing how to react properly.

Pillay said parents and caregivers came from a certain background themselves and at times those backgrounds were out of control.

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They used the same control on their kids because they thought that was the only way to consult the problem.

“At times they react out of rage and they end up killing the kids because they do not know how to react or respond to an issue properly,” he said.

“This is a vicious cycle being internalised from parents to children and spilled out to the communities and schools, leading to bullying and school-based violence.”

Pillay said parental involvement was important because if children were witnessing gender-based violence within the family, they were learning that was the “normal” kind of behaviour and reaction, which modelled situations that took place within the family context.

Parents needed to be encouraged to educate themselves on different mental health issues, in order to take care of themselves and ultimately be able to care for the people they are responsible for, said Pillay.