7 Ways Parents Can Support Self Harming Teens

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Evolve's Behavioral Health Content Team

7 Ways Parents Can Support Self Harming Teens

Read the full series on Teens & Self-Harm and check out our video workshop!

Having a teen who self-harms can be a frightening and disorienting experience for families. 

While as parents we can imagine what it means to protect our children from dangers in the outside world, it’s a different experience entirely when our child needs protecting from themselves.

Supporting a teen who struggles with self-harm behaviors can be uniquely challenging. On the one hand, we don’t want our teens to feel ashamed or ostracized, or treat them as though they’re “radioactive.”

On the other hand, self-harm is serious. And in order to protect teens, it’s crucial that it not be swept under the rug, minimized, or treated with a lack of care and concern.

As a team of mental health experts that specialize in working with teens, we’ve witnessed the full spectrum of how parents react (and don’t!) when a teen is self-harming. We’ve seen everything from pretending it isn’t happening, to becoming so invasive that teens lose any sense of privacy and trust.

We understand that both responses stem from a place of fear and overwhelm. That’s why we’ve created this resource to help parents understand how to appropriately respond to teens who are struggling with self-harm.

Is your child struggling? You aren’t alone.

As a team of adolescent behavioral health experts, we don’t just write blog posts — we support teens and their families in building brighter, healthier futures through our day programs and outpatient services. 

Call our admissions team at 1-877-349-6720 to learn more about how we can help.

1. Approach them with curiosity and sensitivity.

If you suspect your teen is engaging in self-harm (or has resumed past self-harm behaviors), it’s time to have an honest and direct conversation.

However, that honesty needs to be tempered with curiosity (so, keeping an open mind and not assuming your teen’s experience) and sensitivity (being thoughtful about things like tone, language choice, and environment).

A safe conversation about self-harm should include:

  • Privacy: Opt for an environment where teens won’t be overheard or interrupted by others, so they can feel more able to open up and share their experiences.
  • A calm baseline: Parents should resist the urge to bring up self-harm concerns in the context of an argument or when emotions are already heightened for either person involved.
  • Sensitive language: Avoid euphemisms or gestures to ask about self-harm (for example, don’t ask, “Have you been…” and then make a cutting gesture toward your wrist).
  • A curious and non-accusatory tone: Rather than assuming your teen is engaging in self-harm, it’s important to keep an open mind. Name what you’ve observed without immediately attaching an explanation or story to it (for example, “I saw some cuts on your arm and I’ve noticed you’ve been feeling pretty down lately, are you okay?”).

2. Practice emotional validation.

A common misconception that many parents have is that emotional validation is the same as enabling harmful behaviors.

Validation is not the same as enablement, however. Parents can validate their teen’s difficult emotions, while also encouraging them to get support in managing and regulating their emotions in a more positive way.

When it comes to self-harm, teens can have many complex reasons for their behavior, and they may not even know for certain exactly why they engage in the behavior.

That’s why it’s best, rather than asking for an explanation, to instead make room for whatever the underlying emotions may be.

Emotional validation of a teen who’s engaging in self-harm sounds like:

  • “I hear that you’ve been feeling [sad, angry, betrayed, alone]. That must be really overwhelming to deal with.”
  • “This must be really hard for you to share, thank you for trusting me.”
  • “That sounds so painful. I’m so sorry things have been this difficult for you.”
  • “It’s okay if you don’t feel like you can open up to me right now. I just hope you know that I see that you’re in pain and that you aren’t alone in it, even if it feels that way sometimes.”

Remember to reflect back the emotions your teen is sharing with you, so that they feel seen and understood. If they aren’t able or willing to share any, affirm for them that struggling to open up or feeling distrustful is also completely valid.

3. Focus on supporting their mental health, not just stopping the behavior.

Many parents understandably view self-harm as a problem that needs to be “fixed.” However, this mindset is problematic for two important reasons. 

The first is that self-harm is typically a symptom of a deeper struggle, and suppressing (or hiding) a behavior does not mean that the underlying emotional pain or mental health issue has actually been addressed.

The second is that, in some cases, this can reinforce self-harming behaviors. If a teen is only having their emotional pain recognized when they engage in self-harm, and are otherwise assumed to be okay, they may elect to self-harm when they need more support, rather than trusting they will receive care and concern without needing to “prove” they are in pain.

So how can parents support their teen’s mental health overall? It starts with fostering emotional and physical resilience.

Supporting a teen’s emotional resilience includes:

  • Problem-solving: When your teen encounters a difficulty or challenge, teach them to break down tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces. By developing this skill, your teen is better equipped to handle not only mental complexity, but emotional complexity as well.
  • Adaptability: Model and encourage an openness to change, learning, and experimentation. For example, you might encourage them to view challenges as an opportunity for growth, rather than through the binary of success or failure (i.e., “there is no failure when we’ve learned something!”).
  • Self-esteem: Normalize sharing difficult feelings and being emotionally open to disrupt shame, isolation, and self-criticism.
  • Self-identity: Encourage your teen to cultivate their interests, speak their mind, explore their values, and develop into their own unique person.

Supporting a teen’s physical resilience includes:

  • Sleep: Making sure your teen is getting adequate sleep is crucial for supporting their baseline well-being. Poor sleep and lack of sleep can impair executive and cognitive function, which negatively impacts problem-solving, impulse control, and decision-making.
  • Nutrition: Undereating, skipping meals, binge behaviors, and other forms of disordered eating can greatly impact a teen’s ability to stay emotionally regulated and functioning well.
  • Exercise: Regular movement that is joyful and functional can support emotional and mental well-being. This can be as simple as regular walks or dancing in the living room, or as structured as joining a recreational league or sports team.

4. Resist the urge to punish, personalize, or panic.

It’s essential that teens don’t feel that they’re being punished, surveilled, or judged for struggling with their mental health, or that they’re a burden for being in pain.

That means that turning their bedroom upside down while they’re at school, for example, might not be as protective as you might assume.

Going through their personal items to look for sharp objects or other “evidence” of self-harm, confronting them in accusatory or shaming ways, or threatening to take their phone or other privileges away will only encourage them to become better at hiding their struggles from you.

We never want a teen who’s struggling with their mental health — and in particular, struggling with self-harm — to retreat from safe adults who wish to support them and can intervene. But this is often what happens when teens feel violated or shamed by the interventions adults attempt from a place of concern.

Part of ensuring that a teen doesn’t retreat or withdraw is to center their feelings, not your own. 

It can be tempting to share how scared you are, or maybe even how betrayed you feel by your teen’s behavior. However, it’s important for parents to process those feelings separately with other adults or a therapist, rather than placing additional stress on a teen who’s already struggling and isn’t equipped to hold the emotions of their adult caregiver.

Consider that what your teen needs most is what they’ve always needed: Unconditional love. Regardless of how your teen responds and what you learn about their behaviors, emphasize that they will be loved no matter what, and that you will continue to be patient and present, because their struggles are not shameful and will never dictate the amount of care you have for them.

5. Create a safety plan together.

Safety planning — an agreement, usually written or verbal, that reduces the likelihood of a self-harm relapse or event — is crucial for keeping teens’ safe and their environments as minimally triggering as possible.

A solid safety plan for self-harm includes:

  • Tool removal: As part of safety planning, it is important to reduce access to any items that a teen may use for self-harm.
  • Trigger awareness: With the support of a mental health professional, like a therapist or counselor, teens may become more familiar with what types of events or circumstances trigger a self-harm episode. Creating a list and striving toward more awareness can be an important part of recovery.
  • Yellow and red flags: Knowing the warning signs for self-harm — including emotional and behavioral changes that tend to precede a relapse — can be crucial information for both teens and parents to intervene before self-harm occurs.
  • Communication agreements: If your teen is noticing the urge to self-harm, how will they communicate that to you? Think beyond simply telling you. Are there non-verbal cues they can use, like squeezing your hand three times or tapping their forehead? Can they text you if they’re too overwhelmed to share in-person?
  • Alternative coping strategies: You might create a list of other activities your teen can reach for to self-soothe or self-stimulate when they’re distressed, like a beloved hobby, a tactile or sensory toy (like slime or clay, a stress ball, or a fidget), or a comfort activity (a weighted blanket, a favorite movie, a coloring book). You could even create a self-care “emergency” box together as a fun project!
  • Support team: Creating a list of people your teen can reach out to when they’re struggling — including friends, family, mentors, a therapist, and so on — is an important part of encouraging more external expressions of emotion (talking about it) rather than internalizing them (through something like self-harm).
  • Emergency plan: If your teen needs emergency psychiatric or medical care, where will they go, and who will take them? Include these in your safety plan as well.
  • Recovery rewards: What rewards might encourage your teen to stay on track in their recovery? Aim to offer rewards not just for outcomes, like 30 days without self-harming — which may encourage teens to hide their behaviors — but rather, incentivize protective behaviors like reaching out when an urge happens, removing a self-harm tool from the home, communicating a yellow or red flag when they notice it, attending therapy or a support group for a certain number of months, and so on.

6. Keep your goals for recovery right-sized — and be patient!

The goal of recovery is not perfection, in that a teen never struggles with self-harm urges or episodes again, though the hope is that eventually this will be true.

Rather, it’s important to recognize that recovery isn’t linear, especially for teens. It’s best to aim for progress and persistence over a “perfect” recovery with zero urges or episodes.

Recovery from self-harm, generally speaking, looks like:

  • Less frequent self-harm urges and episodes
  • Less severe episodes (compared to previous experiences)
  • Expanding and using more coping skills
  • More honesty and transparency about urges and struggles
  • Better communication between a teen and their support system

Viewing recovery through this lens also helps parents identify when more support is needed. If self-harm urges and episodes are increasing and becoming more severe, your teen may need a higher level of care. 

Similarly, if your teen is becoming more secretive, not reaching for their other coping tools or seeming disinterested in finding other ways of coping, and/or your teen is withdrawing rather than seeking out support when struggling, these are also signs that more support may be needed.

7. Seek professional support.

Many parents report feeling alone and even confused when they first learn of their teen’s self-harming behaviors. However, with professional support — both for teens and for their families — things can and do get better.

It’s understandable that some teens may feel resistant to getting help, and may feel that their independence and autonomy is being undermined. 

In these cases, it can be helpful to come prepared with a range of options (for example, bringing a list of therapists they can then choose from, or letting them choose between making the phone call together or you making it on their behalf for something like a day program).

However, your role as a parent ultimately means ensuring your teen stays safe, and this may mean getting them professional support even when they don’t feel it’s needed.

Feeling overwhelmed? We understand.

At Evolve, we’ve provided countless families with the holistic and compassionate guidance needed to support their teens struggling with depression, self-harm, anxiety, substance use, and more. 

A resilient, hopeful, and happy future is possible for your teen. If you don’t know where to begin, our admissions team is here to help you take the next step. 

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