Epidemic of self-harm grips pupils (Guardian)

Not the headline I would personally have chosen: ‘Grip’ as a verb doesn’t sit well with the idea of self harm to my mind.

The content of the article, though, certainly gives cause for concern.

Some studies estimate that as many as one in 10 children will harm themselves at some point and anecdotal evidence suggests the problem is increasing.

I think we urgently need to investigate where we, as a society, are going so badly wrong that our children are harming themselves on a massive scale. I personally find this more concerning than the idea of children hurting each other, especially when the size of the problem is brough into focus. I know that many of my medical colleagues would disagree, I don’t think antidepressents are the answer, and they clearly cannot be a long term solution. We need to address the root cause of the problem, not the symptoms.

Perhaps this particularly harrowing quote gives us some indication of where the problem may lie:

In one case, a child of mixed race kept scratching his skin to ‘make himself white’.