Reports of self harming at school - normal?

[slavetotwinteendancers]

Can I please ask - do your teens come home and say that self harming is rife at their school, and does it occur in the classroom? This is what I'm hearing from my Year 8 girls (and another Year 9 mum) along with reports of so many girls being on diets and anorexia (in boys too).

Is this a normal thing within the school day or is it just peculiar to their school?!

Unfortunately yes this is common now

Anorexia yes, self harming for some but not in the classroom- that should never be considered normal

Sadly I suspect it's true. I work in the pastoral team of a secondary school and there is a lot of self harm.
Some of it is copying friends/thinking it's cool but a lot of it is the real deal so to speak. I was shocked at the number of students with mental health problems and input from CAMHS. There is genuinely a lot of stress put on our teenagers whether from family problems, bullying or pressure to succeed at school. Social networking doesn't help as they get no break from constant peer pressure to fit in and if they are bullied it becomes a 24 hour thing.
I think as a society we need to do something to improve things for the current generation of teenagers, we are screwing them up.
Sorry, I'm ranting a bit but it all makes me so sad and angry.

Thank you everyone, sadly you've made me feel better. Pointlessfan, what would you do to improve things? Do you have any ideas?

As a parent of a teen who self harmed at 14, pointlessfan has the right approach. Many parents (and some schools) brush it off as a fashion or fad, but at 13/14, this is the time when stress or mental health issues show themselves, often in otherwise bright sensitive teens, from loving families . There needs to be more support and awareness in wellbeing/mental health for years 7 and 8 and their parents. If its happening in school, I would let the school know without specifics your concern and ask them to bring a psychologist in to talk to the years as a start.

My son has said since he started Academy last year that there are lots of girls in his year that self harm. Also that 'they say they are fat, even when they are stick thin'. It's 'just the way girls are these days' he says....

With the reports in media recently, it seems this is something that happens all over the country.

Once my younger DS (then 10 now 12) had used a knife to cut his arms. (No blood, but loads of lines) This was after he had got in trouble at school for the first time and i had probably grounded him for it. He is very quiet and tends to internalise stress rather than let it out. My older DS (14) lets his stress out on me frequently with a range of nasty words and tends to punch his wall. Not had any incidents since with younger one.

DS 14 describes it thus: 'Need attention', 'Need help'. According to him it is rife at school across all ages and gender (esp Emos).

It's a tricky one really and needs careful handling. If we become aware that a child has self-harmed we immediately contact parents. Often they want to deal with it in their own way but we always suggest a visit to the gp for CAMHS referral and a referral to the school nurse. There are other agencies we refer to for counselling if parents or the child shared info re a family break up for instance. Sometimes it is appropriate for school to refer to CAMHS too. We basically deal with each individual case as best we can.
Body image, eating disorders etc are now part of our PSHE curriculum and we inform the kids where they could go for advice if necessary.

Thanks so much everyone for your responses. I spoke to the girls earlier today, and they say they've stopped getting PHSCE lessons now. They used to have one lesson a week in Year 7, but now none in Year 8, although I guess they could just not be recognising it. They say they just have 'normal' lessons!