Parent of a Self-Harming Teen or Suspect Self-Harm?

Are You a Parent of a Self-Harmer? Or suspect Self-Harm?

Disclaimer: I used "her" in my sentences as examples so I wouldn't make sentences awkward with constant usages of "teen" and "him/her" or "them". Not only girls self-harm, boys do too. Age isn't a barrier either. People of all ages can/could self-harm. Most commonly Pre-teens, teens, and during early adult-hood.

I wrote this for parents to understand self-harm better and hopefully be able to handle it better to help their child more in an effective way. Some parents intend to help their teens but end up making the problem worse from misunderstanding self-harm or using methods that make it worse.

Information regarding Self-Harm.

Self-harm can occur in many ways. Cutting, burning, punching/bruising, hair-pulling, skin picking, scratching, skin embedding. Sometimes your teen needs help and someone to talk to but doesn't quite know how to open up. So if you suspect your teen is self-harming, there are some signs that you may wanna keep an eye open for. Self-harm isn't always obvious. Self-harm can occur in various places on the body, but the two common places are the arms and legs. Some teens self-harm on their stomach, hips, chest, and sometimes other various places. Don't look for wounds anywhere else you'd have to search for, just make sure you pay attention if you see many suspicious cuts over time on the arms or legs.

Signs your teen may be Self-Harming.

• Wearing long-sleeves or pants on warm days
• Wearing tons of bracelets
• Wearing arm gloves when wearing a short-sleeve shirt often
• Wearing leg warmers when wearing shorts
• Clothing or towels with blood stains on them
• Razors or other blades going missing
• Sweating and nervousness when asked where cuts/scars came from

Understanding Self-Harm.

Self-harm can be for many reasons. The first step to helping your teen before making it clear to her that you know about their self-harm or asking about it is helping yourself to understand self-harm. Which can be really helpful when helping your teen. We can't help them without understanding better, right?

Sometimes people mistake self-harm as being suicidal. Sometimes it is, but most of the time it isn't. Self-harm can be used for many things. It's a coping mechanism for some teens because they don't know how to deal with what they're feeling or going through. Normally teens self-harm from overwhelming feelings of sadness, guilt, self-hatred, or numbness. Self-harm takes their mind off their emotional pain and sometimes they feel better afterwards because their pain is on the outside or the pain relieves them. It reminds them that it's real. When they feel numb, they cut to feel something since they often feel "dead inside."

The worst part of this, is that self-harm releases endorphins which makes it highly addictive if they self-harm. Self-harmers get strong urges if they're addicted. And sometimes it stops "working" and they wanna go deeper to make it "work" again. Which is the real danger of seriously hurting themselves.

Something you have to keep in mind is that self-harm isn't the main issue, it's a symptom of an underlying problem. You have to get to the roots of it to help them. Most teens with depression, bipolar disorder and other emotionally-affected disorders self-harm. Sometimes a teen can be so depressed that they self-harm as an alternative to suicidal thoughts. So you should definitely keep an eye open for behavior that exibits signs of depression/suicidal thoughts. Sometimes they can have a suicidal thought, but not be serious about it. Either way, it's still dangerous and deserves attention for sure.

Behavior signs to look out for:

• Your teen spends most of her time alone in their room
• Isolation from friends/family
• Not interested in things she used to enjoy
• Sudden interest in tv shows or movies related to self-harm, depression or suicide
• Spends time with pets more rather than human companionship
• Never goes out or gets out of the house
• Drawn or painted sad and dark pictures
• Depressing quote pictures saved on her lap-top
• No motivation
• Failing in school
• Fatigue
• Hopelessness
• Low self-esteem
• Sleeping or tired all the time
• Eating more or less than usual
• Making comments about how nobody cares about her
• Making comments about how useless/worthless and what a failure she is
• Digging her head in something fictional like a game or a tv show and being alone all the time

Reasons for self-harm.

There can be various reasons for self-harming and it could be anything. That's why it's still important to talk to your teen. But here are some common reasons:

• Depression
• Apathy
• Friendship troubles/fall out
• Break-up or emotionally troubling relationship issues
• Abusive relationship
• Sexual/physcal abuse
• Sexual identity issues
• Bullying
• Stress in school

My teen Self-Harms. Now what?

If you're sure or have a pretty good instinct that tells you your teen self-harms and/or is showing depressive signs then you need to think about your actions and think everything through before acting out or you could make everything worse.

Don't do's:

[list][*]Yell at her for hurting herself or feeling this way[*]Tell her she's attention-seeking[*]Tell her she's too sensitive[*]Talk in an angry voice[*]Do a body check for marks/scars[*]Take away all sharp objects[*]Blame yourself in front of her for "failing as a parent"[*]Punish her by taking away electronics or taking away social communication with friends[*]Forcing her into a hospital[*]Sit her down and force her to tell you everything[*]Tell her you're disappointed in her
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Options & suggestions on confrontation and how to help effectively.

You have to be very careful of your words and actions. I realize that as a parent you may blame yourself, but it most likely isn't your fault. Although some teens self-harm because of their home life, but you don't know till you talk to them. Many teens self-harm and it's easy to fall prey for many different reasons.

If your teen comes to you about it, or you confront them and they admit it, or you even suspect it, don't tell anyone else. Self-harm is a private secret to them, they don't want anyone else to know most likely. So keep it between you and her. But first, ask her if you want it to be in private and make it clear to her that you won't tell anyone if she doesn't want you to. Whether you're a mother or father, you should tell the other parent of your teen that you think she's cutting before you confront her if you think she's cutting. That way you won't be keeping a secret from your other half if your teen asks you not to tell anyone. It should be kept solely from friends and other people. People don't like their self-harm to be public.

To confront your teen about her self-harm could be rather difficult for you and awkward and scary for her. But it's still important, especially since teens are 80% more likely to keep it to themselves and not be able to find the courage to reach out. I know you may feel left in the dark on this, but try as hard as you can not to take it personal, it's really hard to open up. There's many ways you can do this and it's extremely important to think over everything you're gonna say to react in the best possible way. Remember to emit a comforting, calm but concerned energy.

First idea: In private, sit your child down in her bedroom or a place of comfort and explain you need to talk to her about something important. Look her in the eye and say that you've noticed how she hasn't been acting herself lately and you've noticed cuts on her. Give her a hug, and ask if she's been self-harming. Before she answers, make a clear statement that you won't be mad or judge her, that you only wanna help and you're worried and concerned.

Second idea: Say the same thing as the first idea, except this time, give her a pencil and a note. Tell her she can write it out to you if she wants so it'll make it easier. Lots of people often have trouble talking about such emotionally hard things out-loud. They begin crying and get their words mixed up from being nervous or hold back on things they were gonna say from fear.

It's definitely understandable that as a parent, you're surely worried and scared for your teen. Sadly, there's no way to force her stop self-harming. Telling her to just stop or trying to force her won't work, it'll make everything worse and make her close up to you more. Which puts her at risk of secretly self-harming or worsening suicidal thoughts (if she has those) since she has no one to turn to. After all, self-harm is a coping mechanism and it's hard to stop so you can't just expect her to stop all at once. It's one of those delicate issues that takes time, support, patience and dedication to recover. The best thing you can do is be supportive. That'll help her so much more than you think.

Recovery.

[font="Arial Narrow"]How to get on the road to recovery? Remain supportive, understanding, calm, and always have a listening ear whenever possible. So, if the confrontation goes well, then you should start listening to why your teen self-harms in the first place. Listen to her thoughts and feelings (through a note/text if she prefers). Explain you're always there if she needs someone to talk to and if she's feeling sad, and tell her that she can come to you and even call you if she feels like hurting herself. Make little efforts like that to try and ease her away from self-harm. Remind her she's great, and doesn't deserve to hurt herself.

You should bring up a therapist, psychiatrist, or a counselor to her and ask her how she feels about it. Sometimes extra help can help. Don't drag her to a professional kicking and screaming, let her know she has a choice and keep trying to convince her to at least consider it and trying this if she refuses. Despite all your other efforts to help her and she doesn't improve, if she's at risk of suicide and severely self-harming to the point of needing stitches and getting bad infections frequently, then a mental health professional is pretty necessary to possibly save her life and help her learn better coping mechanisms. If she wants, you could sit in on a session with her so she won't feel so alone.

There's other things that could help as well. You could do some for her and even with her which might help. I'm sure she'd appreciate it and be happy that you're interested in spending time with her. Taking her shopping, taking her out to eat could lift her mood too. Even making necklaces and bracelets out of string and beads might help her feel a little better. However, there's other things too.

1. Calm Jar.
You can make her a Calm Jar, which is neon or glittery (depending on how you make it) water in a jar. It's relaxing and beautiful to look at. You two could make it and she can look at it whenever she feels sad or wants to hurt herself. I recommend the glitter since it stays forever as the neon fades out within hours. Click here to see pictures of the Calm Jar and how to make it.

2. The Butterfly Project.
This could be great because the butterfly project has some cool rules. You have to draw a butterfly on whichever place you self-harm at, and you could draw the butterfly so it'd mean more to her! You're supposed to name the butterfly after someone you care about. If you self-harm before it fades then you've killed the butterfly. You have to not self-harm till it fades on its own, no rubbing it off.

3. Paper Stars.
This is a cool idea. When you make it a little while self-harm free then you relapse, it's like all your hard work is gone... Even though each urge and sad feeling you pushed through without self-harming contributes to recovery and learning to cope better and more healthier. With this, you make these little stars and put them in a jar. Each day that goes by without self-harming, you put one star in the jar. You can give her a large jar and you can make the stars. Give her one to put in the jar for each day she goes without. Then she can look at the jar as it fills and be proud and more encouraged to keep fighting against self-harming. Click here to learn how to make it.

4. Self-Harm Alternatives.
There's a list of self-harm alternatives which can be really helpful. There's a lot of things on that list that she can do instead of cutting. It's for when she gets urges. So it'd be wise to show her the list! Different things work for different people so I'd encourage her to try a lot of things on the list till she finds some that work for her. Click here to read the list.

If your teen isn't ready to recover yet, then it's nearly impossible to recover. She has to be ready to give up self-harm and there'll be relapses, which always tends to happen during recovery. How you and her handle the relapse is what matters the most. If she does relapse, don't get mad or yell, just hug her and remind her how long she went and how well she did. Encourage her to keep trying. Don't give up on her, recovery is possible.

Medical attention.

Make sure your teen trusts you and be sure to clearly state that she can come to you if she cuts too deeply or hurts herself badly in any other way. Sometimes a teen will cut way too deep and it won't stop bleeding or just be too bad of a cut and need stitches. Sometimes a cut will get really infected, so will a burn. Some of these can be treated at home and need to be watched over till they heal. Make sure you go to the hospital if needed though. Some hospitals have been known for not using anesthesia during stitching and treating their patients badly due to being in the ER for a injury that was on purpose. Many fail to understand self-harm. So if you end up going to the hospital, stay in the ER during stitching with her so you can make sure she's treated okay. Click here for First Aid Information.

[Coffee.]

Did you write this all yourself? If so, you should consider joining the Articles Team and writing articles!

[YoungK9]

Great article

I think this should be a sticky,it's a great resource for parents.

Oh crap. Why is the coding messed up? Is there anyway it can be fixed? It's gonna drive me crazy.

Yep, Traci, I wrote it. Thanks. I might consider that.

Oh and thanks as well, K9!

[Bem]

Speaking as someone who's soon going to be telling her parents about self-harm and is terrified about how they'll react, this is really useful and well-written, well done
also, thanks for linking to my paper stars post ehe

[Ennui.]

This is so amazing! I agree with the whole Articles Team thing, really. I'm not on it myself but from the looks of that you'd be good.

[Takoda]

This is amazing... I swear, this helped me more than it would my parents! xD
When they found out, dad forced me to show him, and then lectured me for 2 hours straight. Aaaand then both my mom and my dad wouldn't talk to me for 3 days. >_>
But I want to make a calm-down jar, since it looks cool. Also, the glow jar looks neat as well :3

[Philomath]

Wow!!! This is well-written, though, there are some errors in formatting.
I really like this. A lot of really great points my family could have used.
Definitely consider joining the articles team!! Click here!

[Digit.]

Amazing work
good job
definitely think about joining the articles team

[Catharsis.]

This is amazing! Don't just think about joining the Articles Team, join us! NOW. I COMMAND YOU.

Seriously though, thanks for writing this, Christabel! It's excellently written and very informative, first of all, and it's so great of you to put this much time and effort into helping people understand self-harm. It could be an excellent resource for parents and guardians. You're awesome!

You guys make me smile. Thanks so much! I think I will join the Articles team once I have enough time to properly fill out the application.

I just really hate that the coding messed up... Gah.