Further understanding ...cutting

I am a father of three children, I am married and I have two siblings.


I am a Christian and proud of it. I believe that Jesus is my hope in life.


I am a youth pastor, a missionary and the founder of a ministry that focuses on hurting people, especially teens and young struggling families. I am a teacher but as important to me is that I am a learner. I love to read and learn new things that help me be a better parent, father, son, Christian and laborer for God.


Why do I say all this? I want to encourage all of us to be educating ourselves on how we can help people more effectively. I am doing this right now through a book I picked up. As someone that works with hurting teens I have wanted to try and understand on a much deeper level teens that "self injure." Whether we like it or not the reality is teens cut themselves, burn themselves and do other things to deal with their emotional state.


This book to me is a must read for all parents youth pastors, educators and anyone else that works with teens. It is not written from a Christian perspective, it is a psychology book written in a way that the average person can understand it. It is written by Dr. Michael Hollander and is called "Helping Teens Who Cut".


I was very careful not to say that they do other things to hurt themselves or bring pain because that is not what they are trying to do. They are actually trying to avoid pain, especially emotional pain. I must confess that I knew very little about this subject so I am learning so much that will help me to make a difference.


I believe that in life we are tempted to look down on people that have certain behaviors and put a label on them. How should we look at these kids that cut? Are they suicidal? Not usually! Are they seeking attention? Not usually! Are they trying to get out of something? Not usually! Then why do they do it?  "Often it is to regain emotional balance in their lives. It is a solution to the extremely disturbing emotional problem of feeling out of control!" p. 8 "Helping Teens Who Cut" by Hollander.

As we try to figure out  why people do what they do it is important to not be quick to judge, but quicker to seek to understand. I am glad for what I am learning, it is such a blessing. It will help me be a better father, pastor, missionary for sure. By the way the book is all about being a better and more understanding parent, grandparent and mentor no matter if our kids are cutters or not.