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Understanding Children and Young People’s Mental Health

The Challenging Behaviour Foundation notes in their Information Sheet on this
subject that:

‘Significant self-injury occurs in between 3% and 12% of children attending
schools for those with severe learning disabilities and is, therefore, much more
common than in children without disabilities where the rate is negligible.’

Source: https://www.challengingbehaviour.org.uk/learning-disability-
files/01--Understanding-Challenging-Behaviour-Part-1-web.pdf

Harmful behaviour that children and young people may
demonstrate as a way of coping with their feelings

Harmful behaviours are demonstrated when the child or young person can find no
other way of expressing fears, anxieties and needs caused by another problem in
their lives. This may arise from bullying, or feeling depressed, anxious or stressed as
a result of something that’s happening in their lives, such as bereavement. A range of
emotions can follow, and life can feel hard to cope with for some people at this time.

Children harming themselves

Self-harming is one possible response. This is when the young person deliberately
hurts themselves as a way of letting their feelings out and dealing with a particular
stress or pressure in their life. This is a very common behaviour with around 10% of
15–16 year olds harming themselves. Self-harm can take several forms including
cutting, burning, or the person throwing themselves against something.

A project called SelfharmUK was set up in the UK in 1993 to help and support young
people who self-harm, providing a safe place to talk as well as advice and guidance.

These extracts from a mother’s story on the next page show just how devastating
self-harming can be for all concerned. Fortunately, this family was helped by
SelfharmUK and a supportive mental health team to overcome the harmful behaviour.

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