What do you wish you knew before about helping a teen with their mental health?

[LostTheWill29]

I have a 14 year old son, who is currently suffering with some mental health issues. He says he feels low, his mood is very up and down. He can't really explain why. He has scratched his arms with his nails to self harm before, but not broken the skin. This is something he has done when very young after getting told off too.

He achieves well at school, is well behaved, has friends and a new girlfriend. Has a supportive family. We have talked loads, checked his phone and all looks ok (but I appreciate teens can hide things). We enforce some screen time rules for bedtimes etc so he actually sleeps and he spends time both in his room and downstairs. He is so hard on himself, far harder then anyone else!

He has started counselling at school and the GP has referred him elsewhere. How can I help him? If you had a teen with mental health struggles, what do you wish you knew/had done?

Thank you

Sorry you are going through this, firstly take care of you- counselling if you need it, Young Minds and Mind websites are great, look at FB groups for supporting teen mental health.
GP has prob referred you to CAMHS; people have mixed experiences- you will prob have a wait- if you have savings or family who would help- get some private therapy for your son asap if he is open to it.
If school aren’t aware- share his difficulties- you can do this in confidence and ask them to be discreet; in this way he will have wraparound care at school - and school may have support they can offer.
Sending you both love and strength xx

Sorry just re- read and realised school aware.

That’s there no real help. CAMHS for us were a disgrace and made things much worse very quickly.

We had to borrow £5k to go private.

And even when there’s a diagnosis there really isn’t any actual support.

You just keep being there and listening and guiding and hope until eventually it passes, IME 🤷‍♀️

Have you looked at YoungMinds website? Recently recommended that for a family member who found it helpful as a parent, as did their teen.

Thank you for the replies. Haven't looked at young minds, will definitely check that out thank you.

School are aware as he initially opened up to a teacher at school. They are very supportive, safeguarding teacher calls me regularly and he has members of pastoral who check in on him. I've also asked them to discreetly check in before and they are very good. But he wants to be dealt with immediately and gets annoyed/low of they don't attend to him if he needs them too, but he makes all the right noises when I try to explain it to him.

It definitely wasn't CAHMS the GP mentioned, but I can't remember the name. School have broached the idea of CAHMS but none of us feel we are there yet. It's just so hard to help!

Sorry you are all going/have been through this too.

It's awful to watch your child struggle and you really have one ahead of you, there isn't enough resources and it's terribly frustrating.
If I can offer good news, he's talking to you, asking for help, you sound really close, you can check his phone....your heads and shoulders above so many others, it doesn't invalidate what your going through just want you to see your still connecting and that's really positive. He is more than his mental health, enjoy the positive moments, the stress can be overwhelming if you let it.

Thank you, this is a really lovely comment

My daughter has had interventions all over the place from school - she has an adhd diagnosis now and is being re-referred for autism.

was it the education wellbeing service they mentioned? I think they are linked with CAMHS. My daughter was referred but refused to engage after the first session and they said it was counterproductive to force her to go.