My son is hurting himself

[Mrsmiaow]

DS is ten and has always had some trouble regulating his emotions - he'd sometimes deny himself things or try to punish himself when he'd been told off, but recently he's graduated to biting, strangling himself with his hands - and today (at his dad's house), cutting himself with a kitchen knife. Just scratches but he drew blood.

He says he doesn't know why he does it, though admits to some paranoid feelings about people at school.

I've got him referred to CAMHS, am trying to organise a counsellor and have informed his teacher so I think I'm doing all the right things, but right now I feel so guilty, like I've done this to him
He has relatives with poor mental health on both sides of the family and I feel like I should have seen this coming before it got to this point. Mostly I just need some sympathy. I'm a single parent and ex-h is being as supportive as he can manage but has already managed to tell me he thinks DS is just attention seeking and that he has escalated things because we have been discussing it.

Has anyone else been through this? How did you cope?

[blueberryporridge]

My DD is 11 and for the last 6-8 months we have been having problems with her self-harming (scratching her arms), hearing voices and getting very distressed. She also feels that her classmates think she is weird and a geek (although she isn't and I don't think anyone had ever called these things).

We ended up getting a private consultation with a psychologist who thinks she may have some autistic tendencies which express themselves in the form of social and emotional difficulties, so we are now on a (long) waiting list for an assessment.

It sounds like you have done all the right things and you shouldn't be feeling guilty - but, on the other hand, I understand all too well the feeling that it must be down to something you did or didn't do, as irrational as that is. It helps me to focus on the steps I am taking to help her rather than looking back too much.

My DH has similar problems to your ex in accepting the problem and tends to think if he ignores things they will go away. I think the only thing you can do is continue to discuss the situation with him calmly and try to win him round to accepting that there is a problem which is going to need attention, and try to involve him in working out things which might help.

Have you got a timescale for seeing CAHMS or the counsellor? In our area, there is such a long waiting list that paying for a private consultation turned out to be a good investment (it cost about £100 but really helped us move things on at school and re getting a referral for an NHS assessment). We also paid privately for some art therapy which I think helped a bit but at £75 a session the costs soon mount up. I think one of the benefits of the sessions was that they helped me see new ways of discussing things with my DD which I have used at home.

You mention that you have told school but have they discussed any measures they might put in place to help your DS at school - for example, does he need quiet time and/or extra support when he is there? We now have a child's plan in place for DD (we are in Scotland) which sets out what we and school are doing to try to help DD.

I have found that trying to create as supportive and nurturing an environment as possible at home for DD (including trying to have more one-to-one time with her) as well as working with school to try to ensure that her needs are being looked after there has helped. In the summer, we took the decision to move her to another (smaller) school where we felt she would not feel under such pressure and where we felt the staff had more of a handle on emotional well-being; this has made quite a difference.

It is really hard but there will be things that will help your DS so hang on in there. We have been lucky to see a lot of improvement in our DD over the past few months although we know we are not out of the woods and I sometimes feel that her problems are going to be with us always to some extent or other.

You need to keep pushing for professional help but also look at what you can perhaps do yourself in the meantime, both in terms of practical ways you can maybe help your DS to calm down and of being his champion re school and CAHMS etc to make sure you get the professional help he needs. I have realised that it is up to us to keep working at making sure our DD is getting the support she needs but having supportive staff at school has also made a huge difference.

Hope some of this helps, and that things start getting better soon.