The most important thing to your kids is YOU. Not your money!!! One of the courses of suicide [obviously not the only one] is the feeling of being alone [in a situation]. Kids/grown ups from close knit families have a much lower probability of committing suicide. A huge number of wealthy parents are detached from their kids. They try to replace themselves with money. Many a times I go to the Village Market "water world" - the slides and pool - and a see a huge number of kids who are brought by their nannies - in complete uniform and can't help but feel sorry for them.

Kids brought by their parents - especially fathers - are happier. They will keep running to the father to explain what happened a few minutes ago "Daddy, the tube had stuck, daddy I fell off the tube, daddy did you see me...". They might have come in a matatu or a 1979 Mazda but the kid is far much better of off than one who was dropped in an S-class by the driver to spend the afternoon with the nanny!

@Robinhood put's it best though. It happens to both the rich and the poor. If you are distant from your kids, the minute they encounter challenges they might just think the unthinkable. It's only that we are so focused on the minister's son and yet tens more kids have probably committed suicide this week alone. But they are from poor or average families! So no press!

PS: My explanation has nothing to do with the minister's son suicide. I have absolutely no information on what transpired on the material day or the kind of life he lived. I don’t want to speculate.

Spoken like a dead poet!

The philosophical approach to issues and looking at things from "another angle" exhibited by artists - like poets - soon makes them dead poets/artist - through suicide - when they finally overdose on it. Chunga maisha ndugu!

Interesting question....... but what is even more interesting is that in the same question you probably give the main reason why a child with wealthy parents might actually commit suicide.

Hard work is a good thing. Rising from poverty to riches is also a good thing. Having said that, these two can in an unenlightened mind create a monster and a bully. Let me explain. A man rises from poverty to a great deal of wealth and power. Everyday he remembers the cold nights he endured as a child, walking 5 miles to school, longing for his first pair of shoes and so on. He works hard, he is at the right place at the right time, things happen and he makes it in life. He now has a lot of money and a house in the wealthiest neighborhood and his children in private schools.

He looks at the contrast between his life and his children's lives and he thinks they have it easy. They have clothes, they go to good schools, they live in a mansion and all that is because of him. He repeats the story of his life to his children a million times and every time he does so he chips away at their self esteem. Look at me, I did not have anything yet here I am. If I had what you have I would be Mark Zuckerberg.

A child of an unenlightened self made man can never be good enough, every achievement he has made or can ever make is robbed of him by his father who thinks it is because of me that you even had the opportunity to do what you did. He endures contempt and disrespect all his life. It is easy in such circumstances to contemplate suicide.

Parents, love your children. Your battles were your battles they have their own. The nature of their problems is different from yours but all children even Bill Gates children have their own set of problems and need encouragement, love and a helping hand.

If you go deep into scientific research, you will see that in most cases of suicide, there is nothing the parent can do unless consult a shrink mapema mapema since a disease like Bipolar checks in on Average at 26 years of age.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder

I live in 26th floor apartment overlooking a beautiful park, I have a job and I don't worry about my bills, I have a nice car, health insurance, dental, life and retirement plan, to someone else, I seem to have it all. However, I sleep less than 5 hrs a day almost everyday, 60% of the time I struggle to fall a sleep, I could be in bed for hours with absolutely no sleep.Over the weekends I can look down my apartment and see seemingly happy guys, obviously broke but playing basketball and having fun like nothing matters, sometime I wish I could just live freely but I can't. The point is happiness is not a function of wealth, poor people are as happy as rich people, infact poor people could possibly be happier than rich people, imagine if you didn't go to school and you lived in forest, you wouldn't even know how good life is suppose to be, you wouldn't even care about cars, nice cloths, status, traffic, career, homework, you would just be landing and eating!

Obviously, I can read people's status from the comment, to this kid wealth wasn't a factor in his happiness, he had the wealth so he didn't consider wealth as a privilage, but to someone else who is not wealthy, they would think wealth could make him happier no!