Even the most affirming and validating caregivers can raise a child or teen who engages in self harm, such as cutting themselves; however, there is something caregivers can do to reduce the risk.

Children and teens often engage in self harm such as cutting and burning themselves because they do not know how to tolerate distress and express their emotions in healthy ways. As caregivers, there is something that we can do to reduce the risk that our children will eventually resort to self- harm when they become upset. We can create a validating environment.

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I have been engaging in self harm for about 11 years and have been deterring self harm for going on 6 years. It is through successful deterrence and a lot of hard work in figuring out the emotional and physical components of the behaviour that I have more often than not been successful at deterring self harm. 

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My most recent visit to Group got me talking a little about how I feel shame about my self harm. In contrast to my co-facilitator/friend, who doesn’t hide her scars, I desperately want to keep mine hidden. I am afraid someone will ask where the scars came from, or worse, a child asks. I, myself, hate seeing what I’ve done to my body. 

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No one is against teaching responsibility to teenagers and preteens.  However, when it comes to prescription medication, the old adage about letting them make their own mistakes can be downright scary.

At least in theory, around the time kids enter middle school, they become more capable of taking over responsibility for their medications.On the other hand, there are actual health (and sometimes social or academic) risks associated with non-compliance or even missing a dose. Worse still are the risks of getting medications confused.

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Harm reduction was initially first used in the contest of substance use as an alternative to abstinence. It is about reducing the physical and mental harm done to an individual when they engage in a potentially risky activity. A person can still engage in the activity but they do so as safely as possible.

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I have been self harming for about 11 years. Despite the large role it has played in my life I have never really focused on my self harm. Rarely was I asked by professionals why I self harmed, what it did for me and how I felt about it. It was assumed that if I was less depressed then I would stop the behaviour. The self harm was seen as a symptom. The depression was gone 6 years ago but the self harm has stayed. It’s less but it’s still there.

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I began to self harm when I was 13 years old. Cutting became my response to the inner and outer turmoil I was experiencing in my life. For the first few years of this behaviour there was very little understanding of the hold that this method of self harm had on my mind.

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As I was sitting down to write more posts on mental health for Parents Space I found myself becoming very upset and struggling greatly to write. After dreading to come back to my computer to continue a piece on self harm I realized that the first thing I should be talking about is triggers.

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Since beginning my mental health journey at age 13 I have seen 6 social workers/therapists and 3 psychiatrists. I know that I will accumulate more in my adult life but at 23 years old that is my current count. I saw these professionals to help me treat the depression and self harm I experienced as a teenager.

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I began cutting when I was 11 years old. The last time I cut was about five months ago. I’m 26 now. I never knew exactly why I did it then. I just knew I would kind of explode and go to the bathroom or my room to cut. If you know a child, or it is your child who is doing this, they may not know exactly why either. All they know is it makes them feel better.

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The largest population of people coming into my office are teens who deliberately cut themselves. They don’t just cut themselves down with harsh self-judgments, they literally cut themselves up with knives, razor blades, scissors, or broken glass.

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When my daughter, Taylor, turned 15 she took teenage angst to an entirely

    new level. Breaking up with her boyfriend of two months had thrown her into

a funk. She quit hanging out with their mutual group of friends.

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