You Can Help Your Child Eliminate Cutting or Self-Harming

Learn what you can do to ELIMINATEā€”not just manageā€”the self destruction. Really.

Step 1: Watch this video.

Step 2: Click the button below to begin transforming your life as a Ridiculously Effective Parent.

Do You Have a Child Who is Cutting or Self-Harming?

In the video above I taught you:

  1. The REAL reason your child is cutting or self-harming (and it's not what you think).
  2. Why you just can't seem to help him or her be happy, no matter what you do.
  3. What you can do to ELIMINATEā€”not just manageā€”the self-destruction. Really.
  4. How you can replace cutting and self-harming with genuine peace and happiness in your child. 

Cutting or Self-Harming

Over the years, the terms used for this condition have evolved, to include cutting, self-harming, self-injury, and others. I will use the terms cutting and self-harming to mean the same behaviors in your child, including any one or combination of the following:  

  • Making cuts or scratches in their skin  
  • Picking at their skin and creating sores 
  • Pulling their own hair (trichotillomania) or eyelashes 
  • Banging their head against the floor or wall 
  • And any other self-inflicted wounds to the bodyā€”burning, punching, and more 

Cutting is NEVER an isolated condition.

It is always an expression of severe emotional pain, and other behaviors are inevitably involved: depression, personality disorders, schizophrenia, and suicide, among others. No group of people is more likely to succeed in killing themselves than the young women (most common) and young men who harm themselves.

Cutting is a very serious mental health problem itself, as well as an indication of other problemsā€”present and future. Cutting used to be seen primarily in teenagers, but more and more children are trying it, and it tends to continue in some form into adulthood.  

Look for the Signs 

Unexplained cuts or scratches

Do you see ANY unexplained cuts or even scratches on your child? These are often barely hidden by clothing, and it is almost never true that ā€œthe cat did it.ā€ 

Change the way they dress

Have they significantly changed the way they dress? Do they cover body parts in a new way? Is she suddenly wearing long-sleeved shirts or blouses?

Poor self-esteem

Do they have poor self-esteem, saying things like, ā€œIā€™m just a loserā€?

Out-of-control behaviors

Have you seen recent out-of-control behaviors, changes in relationships, snotty attitudes, or decreasing school performance?

Denies hunger

Do you see any signs of an eating disorder?

Perfection

Do they have to do a jobā€”or even play a gameā€”perfectly, because they canā€™t live with making mistakes? 

Pessimism

You might sense pessimism, that nothing works out for them. You might hear, ā€œWhy try?ā€

Social anxiety

Do you see their uneasiness being around other people? Do they avoid gatherings? 

Peer depression

Do they talk often about friends or peers who are depressed, anxious, or suicidal?

Examine

If you see even one scratch, do you examineā€”or have a trusted woman examineā€”every square inch of skin not covered by underwear? 

Body Image Issues

Does she or he have body image issues? Do they refer to themselves as fat or ugly? Does she make comments about the bodies of others?

Mood changes

Have you seen recent mood changes like depression or anxiety?

Fear of making decisions

These children and teenagers often are paralyzed with a fear of making decisions or by a generalized anxiety that they canā€™t even put their finger on.  

Isolated

Do they spend a lot of time alone?

Worry

Does your child just have a look of worry on her face much of the time? There might be words, there might not.

Depressed

You might hear them talk about how bad things are in the world, or in his or her own life. 

Stressed

Do they feel pressured to take on greater and greater burdens, until the stress just crushes them? 

Feelings of guilt

You might see more than usual feelings of guilt or worthlessnessā€”perhaps expressed in the common phrase, ā€œI canā€™t do anything right.ā€

The Serious Nature of Cutting

You MUST look for the signs, because without close attention from observant parents, many of these children and teens come across as ā€œnormalā€ kids who are just ā€œfinding themselves.ā€

Without a proper diagnosis, these kids donā€™t get help, and their problems multiply in school, relationships, and careers. Their ability to respond to stress in a healthy way spirals downward, so that cutting and other twisted forms of coping become addictive.

They donā€™t just ā€œgrow out of it.ā€ Suicide is a very real possibility. 

Suppose you have seen the signs above, or you already know that your child is a ā€œcutter.ā€

Do you cringe when you see the new and old cuts, burns, and bruises?

Do you cry into your pillow at night because of the screams for help that you know are represented in the marks on their body?

Are you so very frustrated at the hours of talking, the visits to the therapist, perhaps in-patient treatment?

And itā€™s all accompanied by your blaming yourself for the obvious misery.

Are you not tired of it? Are you not desperate to help your child? 

There IS a Solutionā€”

How to Help a Child with Cutting or Self-Harming

There IS a solution, and weā€™re not talking about controlling or minimizing the cutting. Thatā€™s not nearly enough.

Weā€™re talking about a real transformation where your child becomes truly happy, fulfilled, responsible, and, well, a human being again.

In most cases, what you get is a child much happier than they were before they began to fixate on food and body image.

Welcome to the answers you've been hoping for.

For a long time now, youā€™ve been looking for ways to help your child. I greatly admire what youā€™re doing right now. Youā€™re looking for answers ā€” youā€™re trying to love and help your child ā€” which is way more than most parents do.

And finally, youā€™re in the right place.

You've Been Desperately Looking for Help with Your Child

Itā€™s like youā€™ve been paddling around in the middle of the ocean, desperately looking for help, and nowā€”almost unbelievablyā€”itā€™s here. This is the ship youā€™ve been looking for.

How could I possibly make such an extravagant promise? Because I KNOW how to teach parents how to help their children who are hurting themselvesā€”cutting, self-harming.

Iā€™m not trying to sell you something here that weā€™re GOING to do. You donā€™t have to wait. The training begins right now. In the next few seconds, Iā€™ll be teaching you things about your children and yourselves that youā€™ve never known.

I repeat: Iā€™m not here to tell you ABOUT what Iā€™m offering you. Iā€™m beginning now to GIVE you what you need. Itā€™s my gift to you, whether you continue with me or not.

What a relief to know that right now youā€™re exactly where youā€™ve wanted to be. You can learn what you need to learn. Finally, you can feel encouraged. You can feel hope. You can help your child. 

And Iā€™m going to help you do that.

Your Child is Cutting

and You Want to Do something About It

I know youā€™ve tried to change things: Youā€™ve talked and lectured. Youā€™ve watched their every move. Youā€™ve read books and tried programs. Youā€™ve begged and nagged. Maybe youā€™ve taken them to counseling, maybe in-patient treatment. But your child still injures herself or himself.

And youā€™re frustrated and tired.

Youā€™ve been looking for something that works, and here it is: principles that have proven to work hundreds of thousands of times all over the world.

You would not be here unless two things were true: 

  • (1) you have a child who is cutting or otherwise self-harming,  AND
  • (2) you care enough to do something about it.

If parents are thoroughly committed to learning and practicing what Iā€™m going to share with you, predictably I see children stop cutting. Instead they become happyā€”even after everything else has failed. 

You become happy too.

It is NOT hopeless.

Iā€™m here to help you, and Iā€™ll be using the insight and experience of counseling with thousands of parents, and from writing 20 books and endless articles on the subject, as well as appearing on 1600 radio and television shows and presenting seminars all around the worldā€”and much more.

You are about to change the world around you, and you donā€™t have to do it alone, which is miserable and frustrating. Youā€™ve already proven that with your own experience.

What You Will Learn That You Donā€™t Already Know 

 So now the question that has to be on your mind: what am I going to teach you about childhood or teenage cutting and self-harming that you donā€™t already know?

What am I going to say that you havenā€™t already read in a parenting book or heard from a program somewhere?

This is going to be revolutionary for you to hear, so slow down your brain and listen with your soul: What does a child NEED more than anything else? After food, water, and air, the answer is SO obvious, and yet we keep missing itā€”over and over.

To see the answer, letā€™s start with an infant. When an infant criesā€”other than from obvious physical painā€”what does he want? You already know, because you just pick him up. Youā€™re pretty smart. You already know that every child wants to feel cared for. Every child wants to feel LOVED. 

Picking them up and holding them is just a demonstration of that. And if youā€™re genuine in caring about them, they FEEL it.

But infants are relatively easy to love. They smile and melt your heart, make cute little noises, and laugh in ways we never hear anywhere else. Theyā€™re adorable. 

But when they get older, they learn to spill things, make messes, ferociously say NO when you tell them what to do, scream in their car seat, fight with their siblings, refuse to listen to you, say ugly and hateful things to you and other people . . .

And sometimes give up the fight with the world and turn to CUTTING themselves. They get a LOT harder to love, and when that happens, we really donā€™t know what to do. Usually we try to control their behaviorā€”and we might even temporarily succeedā€”but it doesnā€™t last, and we end up with kids who are still anxious and unhappy.

Weā€™re not so happy either.

Loving Your Children Unconditionally

Let me say this another way:

If our children become more difficult to love as their behavior changes, that proves we donā€™t know how to love them UNCONDITIONALLY.

If we love them unconditionally, weā€™d love them no matter what.

But if loving them becomes more difficult when they refuse to eat or make themselves vomit, for example, and keep using harmful behaviorsā€”our love is conditional.

Unconditional love or Real Love means caring about another person without wanting anything from then in return, but we DO expect something in return for the ā€œloveā€ we give our children: respect, cooperation, gratitude, and a certain level of reasonable and relatively easy behavior, which does not include cutting themselves.

The Real Effect of Anger and Disappointment

Now more about unconditional love: That kind of love would mean that our love would not be affected by what they do. Thatā€™s what unconditional love means.

But we really donā€™t know how to do that. How do I know? We PROVE it every time we become angry, or disappointed, or impatient, or irritated at them. Our anger and disappointment and frustration are undeniable PROOF that our love is not unconditional.

Deep inside, you know that what Iā€™m saying is true, but let me demonstrate further: When other people are angry at YOU, do YOU like it? NO, you donā€™t. Not ever. Nobody does. When other people are angry at us, or when weā€™re angry at other people, weā€™re all saying, ā€œLook at what you did to ME, or failed to do FOR ME.ā€

In anger, weā€™re focused on OURSELVESā€”Me-Me-Meā€”and in that moment other peopleā€”notably our childrenā€”hear only four words, ā€œI donā€™t love you.ā€ When weā€™re angry, weā€™re far too occupied with ourselves to unconditionally love another person.  

I repeat:

When we are angry at another person, including our child, they hear only, "I don't love you."

I promise you that this is true.

No, we donā€™t MEAN to say that, but what else COULD people hear while our words, tone, and behavior are screaming ME-ME-ME? ā€œI donā€™t love youā€ is what YOU hear and FEEL when people are angry at youā€”think about it honestlyā€”and itā€™s what our children hear and feel when weā€™re angry at them. And then we have an anxious child or anxious teenager.

Itā€™s little wonder that they respond with their own anger.

Again, we do NOT mean to do this. We do not mean to hurt our children.

But it was inevitable, because WE were not loved unconditionallyā€”which means being consistently loved without disappointment or anger. We were not loved freely, without conditionsā€”so how could we possibly have learned how to unconditionally love our own children? IMPOSSIBLE.

Nobody is to blame. Our ignorance of Real Love simply perpetuated over generations. We donā€™t know how to love unconditionally because weā€™ve never seen it or felt it with any consistency.

Childhood and Teenage Cutting and Self-Harm is a Reaction to Not Being Loved Unconditionally

For emphasis, Iā€™m going to say all this in a slightly different way:


When children behave badlyā€”when they cut themselves, for exampleā€”it is almost always a reaction to them not feeling loved unconditionally. They do not feel loved with no disappointment, irritation, frustration, or anger.  

This could sound discouraging, even bleak. In some ways it IS bleak. Look at the worldā€”at the utter obsession with things that are distractions from our pain, from our not feeling loved: like endless entertainment, addiction to electronics, anger, controlling people, drugs, alcohol, sex, and on and on.

THERE is the proofā€”in our addiction to all those behaviorsā€”that overall we do not know how to love people unconditionally. If we did, and I speak here with vast experience, these behaviors would not exist.

Children and Teenagers Who are Loved Unconditionally Don't Cut or Harm Themselves

Iā€™ve been teaching unconditional love now for so many years to so many parents that I can tell you this with complete certainty: When a child truly feels loved unconditionally, he or she DOES NOT cut himself or herself.

Instead theyā€™re HAPPYā€”and responsible, and have all those qualities you wish they had.

With sufficient love, there is simply no NEED for kids to cut themselvesor have low self-esteem, or otherwise behave badly. Happy people donā€™t behave badlyā€”like cutting, for example. Period. Full stop.

It seems almost like this statement is too broad, too much. Itā€™s not.

Why You're Not succeeding in Helping Your Children with their Cutting and other Self-Harming Behaviors

How many times have you wondered why a child isnā€™t hearing what youā€™re saying? Thereā€™s an answer, and here it is: Because when youā€™re irritated, your child hears only ā€œI donā€™t love you,ā€ and that is so devastating, that he or she hears none of the rest of the content of what you say.

So THAT is what I'll be teaching you: 

How to LOVE your children unconditionally, 

which then gives them a REASON to LISTEN to you.

If you love them unconditionally, they can HEAR you ā€”what youā€™re really sayingā€”because theyā€™re not distracted by their fear, not blinded and deafened by the ā€œI donā€™t love youā€ message. Then it becomes possible for you to teach them anythingā€”like how to be loving and responsible themselves.

And if they have that powerful trifectaā€”they feel loved, and they are loving and responsibleā€”they are guaranteed to be happy, which is the ultimate goal for any parent, or, frankly, any person.

Your Children Can Learn to Be Happy

Your children can learn that being happy is way more fulfilling than crying out in pain as they cut and otherwise hurt themselves.

Take my hand, and weā€™ll talk about what you can doā€”and how I will support you. It will almost be like starting over in parenting. Youā€™re going to LEARN how to be a real parent, and your child will learn the lessons of life that will benefit him or her for the rest of their lives.

If you implement what you learn here, and if you do it consistently, you simply will not believe the differences youā€™ll see in your child, and in you, and in your family.

Imagine it: 

no more cutting or depression,

no more sadness, withdrawal from the family,

no more loss of interest in everything,

no more expressions of futility and giving up,

no more ugly words,

no more tension in the family.

Our children are not bad. Weā€™re not bad. 

We just have not known how to love and teach them.

Loving and Teaching Eliminates Cutting and Self-Harming in Children

What weā€™re doing with our kids with their anxiety IS NOT WORKING.

Loving and teaching them does.

Rarely is it too late to change whatever unproductive behaviors youā€™re dealing with, not if youā€™re really willing to learn and to apply these principles to the interactions with your child. I can promise you, learning how to be a parent is WORTH IT.

Youā€™re about to learn how to ELIMINATE the cutting and self-destruction in your children that are hurting them and making you crazy. Really.

I make you another promise:

Learning to be a loving, effective parent is EASIER than everything else youā€™ve done as a parent.

Transforming, Not Managing Your Children

Weā€™re really going to get into this. This is not a casual effort. Weā€™re not looking to make your children more manageable. Thatā€™s not even close to being enough.

Our mission is to help you to become a powerful and effective parent, and to help your child feel loved, and to be loving, responsible, and genuinely happy. Itā€™s a transformation.

If you ARE truly committed to learning how to parent, Iā€™M fully committed to teach you, and I will bring resources to the table you never thought about. The rewards are spectacularā€”as we have seen in uncounted thousands of families.

There is not a single thing youā€™ll ever do that will ring through the ages more powerfully than being a loving and effective parent.

You can do this, so let's get started.

Click the button belowā€”itā€™s freeā€”to begin transforming your life as a Ridiculously Effective Parent.

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