12 yr old DD- help needed. (boys, eating disorder?, self harming)

[MissBrown]

Feeling out of my depth. My 12 yr old DD seems to be getting into the wrong way of thinking. She is a very beautiful girl and is getting a lot of attention since she started high school last year.

Since disappearing to a friends house after school one day she was grounded and lost internet access. During this time she managed to start another facebook account. This account contained lots of alarming status updates including 'sore lips' and 'stalking boys'. She also 'liked' durex condoms and tia maria.

I have also found out that she has been making herself sick and scratching herself with a compass on her wrists.

We only found this out as my husband came home and found her on the computer and checked what she was up to.

Help!! We have no idea what to do and have gone down the 'come down hard' approach involving being grounded, constant chores and reminders of why she is being treated this way. Any ideas about where to go from here?

Thank you in advance.

Couldn't read and run. Loads of good advice on teenager board- sounds like you need to find s way to talk to her and find out what's going on. More wisdom no doubt will follow on here- good luck.

Thank you Twentyten.

Hi MissBrown,
I know how upsetting it can be finding this sort of things about your teens, you can feel so helpless.
I myself was a self-harmer in my teens and sadly my daughter also went through a rough patch.
I think it would be a good idea to calmly have a chat with your daughter, try not to judge, and let her know you're there for her.
As much as I hate to say this, it does seem that self harming and ED's are almost a 'trend' at the moment which is quite sad.
I would say, once you've had a chat with her about making herself sick etc.. Possibly take her to the docs (if you feel it's needed) to get help as soon as you can x

She sounds very socially insecure. Putting those updates on her facebook suggests that she is afraid that her peers won't accept her if they don't think she is terribly experienced. (I would also suspect from the way she is going about it that she probably doesn't have much any experience and is just parroting expressions she has heard but that is just me).

I would be gentle with her, point out that the vast majority of people her age do not actually have sex or even drink, but that anything she puts on a screen could come back and damage her years later. Not least because in a year or two it will make her look very, very silly. And remind her that even if she deletes a facebook status there could be some disloyal friend out there who has taken a screenshot.

But I would try to get to the bottom of why she feels the need to do this. Is she being bullied? Or are other people around her being bullied and she is afraid she might be next in line? Could she find nicer friends?

If she is living on a social volcano that could also explain the self-harming.