Teen Self-Harming Series: What’s this Cutting thing?
From the desk of Tammy Hayes, Middle School Principal:
What’s going on with my teenager? It seems that in a moment our kids can move from happy go-lucky to curled up in the fetal position or hidden away in bedrooms without much notice in between. Why? What’s changed since we were kids? Some say it’s social media. Teenagers are wrecking their own kind through these open uncensored avenues of communication saying devastating things they would never say in person.
Also, many experts say the demands on teens are greater- families are more disjointed by separation, divorce, or even just too many activities interrupting a sense of what would have been considered a normal home-life 20 years ago. In order to have a home life, you have to actually be at home. Thus, it is feasible to consider that a family who has multiple activities scheduled each day of the week in different directions can foster its own sense of stress on teens who are trying to manage many things inside of a mind that still thinks moment-to- moment and a body that is hormonally in flux.
Realizing that there are many reactions exhibited by teens trying to handle pressure and stress differently, I wanted to offer a series of articles for you to read or podcast for you to listen to that address a rapidly growing trend of self-harming among teenagers. Hopefully, they will prove helpful to you in some way, either as a personal heads-up, good conversation starters for the car, or to help out a friend along the way who may have a teen in trouble’s way.
We are talking about this to our students at Brook Hill, both making them aware of the traps that may lead this direction and offering a relevant voice to remind them that God is completely interested in the hurt in their lives and wants to be their source of relief rather than some of the things the world tries to offer.
Tammy Hayes encourages you to read the article by Mark Gregston called, What’s this Teen Cutting Thing