Please help my child is being bullied within his circle of friends. My son is twelve and started in his secondary in September. He settled in so quickly and was so happy with his new circle of friends. However suddenly he has become a target and he had no idea why. We talk alot together and he honestly cannot understand why this has happened as he feels he has done nothing wrong. I feel the group has come to realise that he is very soft and is not the type to hit back when they are mean. His so called friends seem incapable lately of being kind. They repeatedly insult him and call him names and exclude him. He is devestated. He is an extremely sensitive child and the slightest thing hurts him. He has been through this is his primary school and he couldn't wait to put it all behind him and now it has all started again. He has hurt himself before when he has had trouble with friends and it all stopped when he got new friends and settled into school. Should i approach the school? It is so difficult to know how to address it. If his friends find out i approached the school it will makes things 10 times worse but I just don't know how to stop it. Please help me I am so worried about him. ... View more

Hi I am new to the site, I am delighted to have found the forum. I have a 12 year old boy who is generally very happy. Recently however he told me he hurts himself. He said it started when he was 5 when he scraped his nails down a wall and it made him shudder. To this day he will scrape plates or pottery to get the same effect. He says he does it to "annoy himself". He said since it started it has progressed to putting pressure on an area of his body that may have been hurt naturally, e.g. if he gets a pain in his tummy he will push it or if he gets a bruise from playing sport he will push on that. He will also tense his hands and his leg muscles and the latest is vigoursly rubbing his forearm on his leg or a table. I keep an eye on his body and nothing will go to the extent of tearing or breaking skin or bruising or even redness. He says that he does this to annoy himself and he does it even when he is happy. He says the urge is very strong. He has told me that lately he has increased the amount of times he does it and he asked to speak with someone who can help him stop. We have been to a counsellor twice and we now use an elastic band. I felt we were making progress and we were beginning to understand the behaviour. Last night he said in a panicked voice that it is not working and he doing it more and more. I stayed calm and reassured him and promted him to use his band. He sat looking at me and he vigoursly rubbed his arm on his jeans. I felt by the look on his face that he was testing me to say "stop it" (which i never do). I normally say its ok to have the urge lets use the band. I added that i could not stop him from doing this and it was only him that could decide. He did stop and just went on chatting about something else and the topic didn't arise there after. When he went to bed i collapsed on the couch as behind the so called calm exterior I want to scream stop do you know i am terrified. I am so worried this will progress to cutting or worse. Other than this I would describe him as a happy, popular boy who is strong acedemically and in sport and does well in all areas. He is a very sensitive boy and finds it very difficult if others are mean to him. He was told alot by a boy last year that he was annoying and this deeply effected him. We are working on this with his councellor. I would be so greatful for any advice. I feel better just to have written this down. Thank you for your time. ... View more