Hartland Schools Sees a Growing Trend of Cutting

The instance of adolescents cutting themselves with a knife, razor or other sharp tool is on the rise in Hartland schools each year, according to  Student Assistance Coordinator Nicole Schingeck.

"The unrealistic expectations that the kids put on themselves to try and fit in creates the drug use and the eating disorders and starting to self injure with the cutting on their arms,” said Schingeck who says that she sees cutting mainly in middle school-aged girls. “They choose to self injure themselves to release that feeling or to feel something.”

Some parents who attended a seminar on Thursday night put on by Schingeck and Kris Nelson from the Key Development Center, say they were shocked to learn that cutting was even going on at the middle school level.

One mother of a seventh grader at  said that when her daughter came home one day telling her that she knew of a girl who was cutting, she became worried. 

“I didn’t even know it was a problem at this age,” she said. “I felt bad for the little girl, but I don’t want my daughter hanging around her ‘cause I don’t want my daughter learning that.”

This concern was echoed by many of the approximately 20 parents present during Wednesday night's Raising a Teenager is a Rollarcoaster Ride, which was a seminar put on by Hartland Schools and gives an overview of issues parents deal with while raising teenagers. The next seminar is tentatively scheduled for April.

Other parents wondered how kids learn the behavior and why they would intentionally hurt themselves. Many wondered if peer pressure was a factor in this growing trend.

“Right now there’s a lot of attention around it (cutting),” Nelson said. “A lot of kids are doing it, in the middle school, especially. There’s been a lot of attention around cutting so a lot of them know what it is.”

Nelson says that studies show that cutting isn’t about attention but about trying to feel something due to the release of endorphins that comes with the cut. 

“Some kids will try it and they don’t get the emotional release that other kids do,” she said. 

According to one study from TeenHelp.com, in the United States, it's estimated that one in every 200 girls between 13 and 19 years old, cut themselves regularly.

“It becomes an addiction,” Nelson said. “Like an eating disorder. It is an issue that we’re all facing in the schools right now and the younger girls, they’re having a hard time with it.”

When a cutting incident is brought to the attention of the schools, school policy is a phone call home, according to Schingeck and to request an evaluation from a therapist outside of the school.

“Most of the time they’re carrying some kind of an emotional issue with them,” Schingeck said. “Hence the evaluation so the parents have a better record of what is really going on.”

Nelson recommends talking with your children about cutting and says that bringing up the topic won't make your child hurt themselves.

"Talking to kids does not make them do things," Nelson said. "There’s so much information out there on the internet that they’re going to find out anyway. They need to know that you care and that you’re not going to freak out." 

Other things to know about cutting, according to Nelson and Schingeck:

• It is mainly young girls who cut, although boys will do it also.
• Cutting releases endorphins and can become addictive without help.
• Cutting is a coping mechanism.
• Cutting is not an attempt to commit suicide.