I am the mother of a 15-year-old girl, my child is particularly obedient and sensible from an early age, and his academic performance is good, but his personality is a bit introverted. After the third year of junior high school, she often told me that she did not want to go to school, and I thought that she might be facing the middle school entrance examination, and there was some pressure, and she did not go to her heart. It wasn't until one time I found out that she had secretly slashed her own arm with a knife that I finally realized that the problem was already serious. Now the child is not willing to say anything to me, I am very worried, what should I do?
- Helpless mom
The above presents the understanding of some parents about the self-harm behavior of teenagers, shocked and at the same time confused. Why would a child who should be full of vitality hurt himself?
Self-injurious behavior in adolescents is not uncommon. When children enter the adolescent stage, their physical functions and sensitivities continue to increase, and their inner world becomes rich and sensitive, but their brain and emotional processing ability are not yet fully mature. When encountering some negative events, such as poor interpersonal relationships, excessive learning pressure, and lack of emotional care for parents, if adolescents cannot cope well, the emotions and difficulties hidden in the heart and cannot be expressed will be directly externalized through behavior. Children who injure themselves often cannot explain the cause of self-injury, and often answer "uncontrollably", "want to make themselves feel comfortable", "want to feel their presence with bleeding or pain", etc.
01
Faced with the urge to hurt yourself,
How can teenagers help themselves?
Find ways to appease yourself
Self-harm isn't the only way to relieve stress. Before your emotions reach the height of pain, you can begin to soothe yourself by listening to songs, dancing, drawing, playing games, running, hugging dolls, taking a hot shower, and so on. If you want to reduce the feeling of emptiness and unreality with pain and bleeding, then you can try holding a piece of ice in your hand, feeling the obvious temperature change in the skin of your hand, and paying attention to controlling the time to avoid frostbite. When you feel aggrieved and need to talk, you can talk to a close friend or try to write a letter to a close person.
If it's hard to express your inner feelings to your parents or others, journaling is also a great way to express yourself. A diary is your independent world, and the impulse to "speak up and do whatever you want" can be placed in it. Every once in a while, you can look back and write a small review. In short, this is your world, no need for flowery words, usually how to speak how to write.
Relieve negative emotions through physical exercise
Physical exercise can improve attention and self-control, and reduce negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, and anger. There are many ways to exercise, such as baduan nishiki, cycling, broadcast gymnastics, table tennis, jump rope, yoga, etc. Choose what you like, keep doing it, punch in every day to motivate yourself, at least 3 times a week, for more than 20 minutes each time, and for at least 10 weeks.
Vent emotions in the right way
When negative emotions arise, there is no need to deliberately control your sadness. Finding a quiet place to cry can make negative emotions such as grief, tension, fear, and depression be released freely; at the same time, tears can also discharge the harmful substances produced by these negative emotions and release stress. Shouting out your pain is also a way to vent your emotions. After crying, you may feel as if there is a gap where warmth and light can come in, trying to find and remember what can be felt through that gap.
Ask for help
When a person is having difficulty supporting, be sure to seek help. You can ask parents, teachers, and friends for warmth and ways to relieve pain. You can also seek the help of a psychiatrist and psychotherapist to talk to professionals, who may be able to understand your feelings better and help you walk through this darkness and try to get back on track with a little bit of life.
02
In the face of self-injurious behavior,
How can parents help their children?
Children with self-injurious behavior seem to be trapped in a maze of pain, scarred by thorns on their way to finding exits again and again. They need adult attention and love. What should parents do?
Organize your mood and be patient
For parents, after discovering that their children have injured themselves, they will experience a process of emotional change from shock to guilt to anxiety to irritability.
Shock, because they did not expect their children to have self-injurious behavior, feel confused; and then began to feel guilty, thinking that they did not do well, careless negligence will lead to such behavior of children; and then turned to anxiety, afraid that the child will commit suicide, worried about the child's future; then is intensive encouragement and enlightenment, hoping that the child will change, if the child does not change, parents may become irritable, think that the child is disease-free moaning, let the child "self-harm", and even "bad words".
If parents do not adjust their mood in time at this time, it will be more detrimental to the solution of the problem. The first thing parents should do is to sort out their mood, accept reality, accept the child's current situation, not over-blame themselves, maintain patience, and actively find the right way to solve the problem.
Provide emotional support
Studies have shown that family emotional warmth is an important protective factor in reducing adolescent self-injurious behavior. Parents are very important to their children as "others". When a child has self-harm, his pain is often unbearable, and he cannot think of a faster and more effective way than self-harm. Behind these unbearable pains are often the unmet psychological needs of children.
Therefore, when communicating with children, parents should maintain an open attitude, patiently listen to their children's inner thoughts, understand their children's feelings, strive to see the needs behind these pains, and understand and affirm the rationality of their children's needs. The affirmation of parents can give children a lot of inner energy.
Prevent recurrence of self-harm
When the child has self-injury, parents should show understanding, the child's self-harm is to alleviate the pain, but the self-injurious behavior itself should show an attitude, encourage the child to reduce self-injurious behavior.
You can work with your child to make an agreement to reduce self-injurious behavior, recommend that your child give self-injury tools (such as blades) to parents or other trusted people for safekeeping; encourage children to tell those around them when they have self-injurious impulses, and spend the most painful periods with others; and help children learn to use other healthy ways to relieve pain rather than through self-injurious behavior.
Seek professional help
Adolescents with self-injurious behavior have a higher risk of suicide than others, and parents need to pay full attention to and deal with it in a timely manner. Relying on the strength of parents alone is often more than enough and insufficient, it is necessary to take the child to the psychiatric department as soon as possible, let the psychiatrist make a professional assessment of his mental condition and suicide risk, clarify the diagnosis and formulate the treatment plan, and regularly follow up. For a period of time, parents need to work with doctors, teachers, and even more people to help their children through this special period.
Grow up with patience
The key to solving the problem of self-harm in children is not only to eliminate the behavior, but more importantly, to see the emotions and needs behind the behavior, so that the problem can be solved. Only when the child grows psychologically, has a more positive and healthy way to regulate emotions, and can face the challenges in life more rationally, self-injurious behavior will gradually decrease until it disappears. This is not a one-time moment, but a tortuous and iterative process.
It is recommended to find a reasonable emotional adjustment method with your child and provide your child with some choices, such as: talking, relaxing, diverting attention, exercise, etc. Share the beauty of the past with your children, build a beautiful hope about yourself and the future together, and build a life worth living together.
If adolescents can find ways to soothe themselves, alleviate pain, vent their emotions, and get help in the "self-injury crisis", then the crisis is a turning point and an opportunity for growth. If parents can scientifically understand and calmly respond to the "self-injury crisis", and use this as a bridge to strengthen parent-child communication, they will certainly be able to achieve common growth of both parties.
bibliography
YANG Chunyan, JIANG Danli, LI Xiuling, et al. Current situation and influencing factors of non-suicidal self-injury behavior of junior high school students in Guizhou Province[J].Modern Preventive Medicine,2020(13): 2359-2363 .
CHEN Yihua. Children have self-injurious behavior, how do parents turn "crisis" into "opportunity"[J]. Mental Health Education in Primary and Secondary Schools, 2021(26):3.