14yo dd talking about self-harm on WhatsApp with friends

[thirdistheonewiththehairychest]

I checked my DD's WhatsApp this evening because she has a struck up a new friendship which seems to be becoming very intense and we are worried about it.

My dd is talking a lot with her friend about how she has been self-harming with her fingernails but also that she's started using scissors. I think this is all attention-seeking and that she's not really hurting herself, but I'm not really sure what to do now.

Do I tell her I've read her messages? Do I subtly ask her about it? Hide all the scissors in the house?

This has completely thrown me and I'm very worried. Please be kind.

She came home from doing some leaflet deliveries and so I popped into her room to chat to her and asked if she's ok as she doesn't seem very happy at the moment. She was all cheerful and saying she's absolutely fine!

All attention-seeking with this girl I think (there were other things she was saying in her messages that were just outright dramatic lies).

I'm not sure what to do about it now though! Do I call her out on it somehow? It's not healthy, surely?

I'd make contact with the pastoral care at school, if she's using scissors they need to know about it, it doesn't really matter if she's attention seeking, it can turn into more extremely quickly ( my step son is older but progressed from scratching to really attempting to cut himself with a knife.)
Re.her phone, does she know you check it? If not be careful because the new friend may encourage to start using snap chat etc which is less easy to monitor. Maybe she's using WhatsApp so it is visible to you and she's feeling out of her depth. Young minds also have some useful information on how to approach self harming. The young people's emotional support service in your local area may also be useful and give her someone to talk to (it's generally called variations of 'youth emotional support' or various acronyms)

Thank you, that's really helpful. She generally uses Snapchat but this one girl is not allowed Snapchat hence the message on WhatsApp instead.

Dd knew when she first got her phone that we occasionally checked her messages but since then I think she's forgotten or just assumed that we don't any more.