A ten year old child has a lot of growing and maturing to do in the next few years, so in my humble opinion, I'd take care with the losing weight business. I'd be inclined to make just a few changes, in the direction of eating healthy foods rather than necessarily losing weight. I also am overweight, and so was my daughter when she was 10. I thought I was doing the right thing by losing weight with her, but she couldn't stop and developed anorexia, That was even more scary. Your child is likely to gain a reasonable bit of height in the next few years, so take it easy. ... View more

Self Care can be hard to do, but it is essential.  When in crisis it is difficult to even think of self care.  The world as you know it, can suddenly stop, and as a parent you can be thrust into nightmare situations that you never imagined you would be in, ever.... In these sort of circumstances, self care is very far from your thoughts, the most you can do may be to try to distract yourself for half an hour watching mindless TV.   It took one of my other children saying "Not you too, Mum" , this was enough to wake me up to the fact that my family needed me.... needed me to be able to operate in this new type of life... needed me to cope.  So I came out of my "blind funk" and started to get the help I needed to be able to help my family.   I'm sure there are lots of people who deal with crisis better than I did, but I try not to judge myself too harshly, I was in shock and just trying to process what had happened, it is what you do next that really matters.  So my advice is GET HELP, don't let your pride get in the way, Do what you have to do so that you can act as a fairly sane person in a really tough situation.    Then, if you can, when you can, learn to laugh. Laugh at the scary, crazy things you now have to do.  Find the humour in the tough stuff, we don't often see it this way, but humour makes you brave.   ... View more

Hi Lovingthrublue, Yet again I don't have answers, but send sympathy re the self harming.  It makes me feel almost ill when I see the evidence of my own teen's self harming.  Even when things seem to be looking up a bit, it seems that self harming is a hard habit to break, and hard for us to fully understand too. Our beautiful teens whom we remember as gorgeous babies with perfect skin.....it is hard for parents to see such harm. But yes, we do have to look at the good stuff that is happening in their lives, maybe, just maybe, the self harming habit takes a while to disappear after many of their other issues are resolved. Anyway, just know that you aren't alone, I'll be thinking of you and your child/teen, there are many parents just like us all around the world, dealing with the same issues. ... View more

OOPs, just realised that this was from quite some time ago. ... View more

Oh dear, Lovingthrublue. It is so hard to support a teenager who does not want anyone to know.  While you need some crucial people to know, especially at school, where her safety is at stake, ideally it would be good to be able to let her be private about her mental health. BUT, and this is a big but, you are going through a great deal of stress and trauma yourself, I know because I've been there too, and you need someone you can talk to. Be careful and respectful about who you choose, it may be a psychologist for yourself or a very close and trusted friend or family member, but make sure they know not to tell others.  This forum is good, but for your own sanity you will need to talk with someone you can trust.    Mind you, mental health should not have so much stigma attached to it, and realistically, it is so common that there is no reason for it.    I'm sorry your school is being diffucult. I told our school that my teen's safety was much more important than her education. I'd see if there was anyone else at school that you could talk to, I know it sounds dreadful and hard to read, but let them know that it won't reflect well on the school if anything ...well....scarey ....life threatening....happened to you daughter, because of pressure they put on her.     Sometimes you have to fight for your child.    Thinking of you. ... View more

One slight note, usually you cannot go and see the same psychologist as your teenager, again because of confidentiality. ... View more

I hope she went to see the doctor, but if you can't get her there, there is still some other stuff you can do.  Because she is sixteen, you may not be able to go and talk to her doctor yourself, there may be confidentiality issues, but you can ask to see a psychologist to help you parent your depressed child.  I know it may seem weird to go to a psychologist yourself, when it is your daughter who you really need to see a psychologist, but if she won't get help, you can still get help to help her.  ... View more

It hasn't been easy, mental health problems do not always show very much from the outside, some teachers have trouble seeing that she is ill.  I see the non attendance as being a symptom of her illness, and in fact proof of her illness.  I've had to have meetings with year supervisors to explain her issues, and they have been understanding, but it does not always filter down to other teachers or office staff.  Contacting the school every time she was unable to attend became such a chore, eventually I was able to assure the school that if she wasn't there that she was safe at home in bed, and not just wagging. Eventually they agreed to mark all of her absences as 'explained' whether or not I contacted them.....this didn't quite translate with the office..... but so far I haven't been in trouble with any authorities.  I'll put them in touch with her doctor and 2 psychologists if necessary.   We've considered home schooling, but she does not want this, and I figure that it is best for her to be with her peers when she is able to.  We don't want her even more socially isolated. It is a bit better now that she is at a matric college, as they are treated more like adults. It is a shame that their lessons aren't live streamed or something, so they could easily catch up from home when they can't deal with people. It is probably worth asking if they have some sort of flexible learning options, my D finished one subject by working through booklets at home.  At times i've looked at Ted Talks and Kahn Academy to help her with study, but it is time consuming. ... View more

Yes thankyou Ngaio-RO, I did find other help, it just took a while. ... View more

Hi, your post seemed very familiar to me, as we have been, and to a certain extent, still are in the same situation as you. My daughter has depression but not as severe as your daughter's, but complicated with other mental health issues, such that attending school on a full time basis has been impossible for her.  I wish I had lots of answers for you, but I don't, but sometimes it is good to know that you are not the only people to be going through stuff like this.    My D has only sporadically attended school for the past 2.5 years.  It is difficult and frustrating.  She's a good kid, but the number of people, constant deadlines and migraines just make regular school attendance next to impossible.  We have tried a number of things, but none of them very successfully.  For a start, we let her change school, to where no one knew her and she could be anonymous, this also involved some risk, as it meant that she had very little support at her new school, but she really needed the breathing space it gave her. But this would not be true for all kids.   I suppose that our biggest change was our attitude to her schooling.  While we value schooling, her health is more important to us. We did our best to downplay the importance of school, figuring that there is nothing education-wise that she can't make up for at some later stage of life, when her mental health is better.  So we told her that it is OK not to pass everything, and if she failed everything that we would still love her and support her. Amazingly, despite sporadic attendance, so far she has passed everything.   So our attitude has been to ease off as much pressure as we could, give her some choices (but not too many) and just accept that for now, this is her reality. As I said, I don't know if this is any help, so ignore it if you like. ... View more

The school my daughter was at was amazingly supportive and communicated well with me, especially in a crisis. But despite this we still had to let our daughter change schools, the staff were wonderful, yet it still was the wrong school for her. Things were going badly for my D, self harming, depressed, suicidal and the beginnings of an eating disorder, she just couldn't do it any longer, and she felt as if she were letting them all down. Things were pretty critical, and we agreed to a fairly sudden change of school just to give her a breather.  And it did help, we had about 6 months of lowered stress, as predicted, she did take many of her problems with her, but just then I believe that change saved her life.   What I hadn't realised was that her old school had been supporting me as well as my D.  Suddenly so much of my support network was gone.....mostly gone......they still (2 years later) ask how she is, and not because they want her back, but because they still care about her. ... View more

I can see where the Roast Me idea comes from. In our family and friends we joke around, we have ongoing jokes, and tell people that we only pick on people we like......we are strictly polite to people outside the family/group. But it is one thing to joke around within a safe loving small group, and something entirely different to ask total strangers to roast you.    For teens in particular it seems particularly dangerous, as they may well believe what total strangers think of them.  Kind of like all your innermost insecurities (and ones you weren't aware of) put out there for everyone to see and comment on. It seems like a very dangerous thing and could be very damaging to young people's sense of identity.    Also it seems as if it would perpetuate the perfectionist ideals (to be thin and beautiful etc) which put young people under such pressure already.  This can contribute to eating disorders, and I guess a whole host of other mental health issues. ... View more

It is difficult as each child thinks you favour the other one. I used to tell them that their sister was the person that would be closest to them when they grew just a bit older, sisters have all their upbringing and environment in common even if they are quite different in personality. And it actually happened. They are very close now, but I'm not sure if telling them this helped!   ... View more

Mine would be " Be proud of yourself and what you can become. Don't let others put you down, it is their problem if they don't 'get' you." ... View more

Many people have been supportive of my D coming out but not everyone has been accepting of her. To be honest I was completely stunned myself at first. Many people say that it is no surprise when their child comes out, because they had always suspected it, but that wasn't the case for me. I had known that my D was struggling badly, but had focussed on dealing with the anorexia, because it was life threatening.  It is a whole whirlwind of emotions that I went through, luckily I was relatively calm when she told me and was able to say something appropriately loving, but after that I felt shocked, numb, like someone had kicked me in the stomach, worried, anxious, embarrased even. But in the background I was aware that my daughter had been dealing with all of this by herself for years, and the idea of that lonely confusion and suffering just about broke my heart, and I realised that this was her story, and that my job as her parent was to love her unconditionally and support her. I can't undo the pain she has been through, but I can be on her side now. So really I can't judge others who do not understand what it is like to have a different sexual orientation BUT kindness and compassion does not require total understanding, and we owe all people kindness and compassion. I'm also learning to appreciate the amazing and tallented daughter that I have....a daughter to be proud of. ... View more

1. I have three daughters between 12 and 17. They like to laugh at their old daggy Mum, but it is affectionate laughing so it is fine, any laughter during tough times is a victory. 2. I've tried just about everything to help my stress levels Mindfullness, visits to a psychologist, talk to select friends, chat on forums like this, talk to a counsellor, write in a diary, read, and much though I ate to admit it, medication.  But the very best thing that I did, and this was when our situation had eased a bit and I realised that life had seemed to pass us by, was to make a conscious decision to actually live life more fully, so we went on a holiday to an island in the south pacific. We couldn't really afford it, and I left all the details to a travel agent as I didn't have spare headspace for planning, and we just (all of us) went off and made some good memories to replace some of the dismal ones. 3 I came across ReachOut on facebook, and having had a good experience with the ATDT forum for eating disorders I thought I'd say hi here. 4 Be prepared to throw out all the old rules if they are no longer useful. Try to approach any weird, scary, confronting things your teen may do or say, not with anger or fear, but with an attitude of curiosity i.e. " Tell me about that" or "Is there a particular reason you say/do that", this way you can avoid confrontation as much as possible. But also try to treat them with respect, they are emerging adults and it can be a difficult process for them. 5 The kids are starting to spread their wings and we often need to be taxis, but some of our best conversations with the kids can be when there are just two of us in the car, so I use these times to touch base and just informally chat. ... View more