Tonight was bad. I've been aware for a while that my 14 year old has been occasionally cutting himself. Very lightly, and when I ask, he says its cat's scratches. He generally seems happy, and is doing well at school, and enjoying most of it. Being a typical boy he doesn't share much, but is chatty and trusts me enough to talk about school issues, but not personal stuff, and I respect his privacy. He's got into a circle of girls who all seem to have a lot of personal problems, and I assumed he was doing it in sympathy with them.
Tonight he got out of the bath and I noticed red weal like marks on his back. I innocently asked to see what they were, and they looked almost like scar tissue or stretch marks, though it seemed a v odd place to get a scar. His dad then came in too and noticed light cuts on his tummy, which he said were cat scratches again. DS got, understandably, annoyed with us and we were both packed off. I didn't say anything, except that I didn't think they looked like cat scratches, which has obviously blown his cover. I just don't know how to approach him to talk about the cutting, as its obviously worse than I though, and I'm worried this could get bad. How do you talk to awkward teenage boys? I'm really worried that having blown away his cover, he will hide the cuts more, and things could escalate. Where do I go from now?