What Changes During Adolescence?

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Teens overwhelmingly see telling an adult about a friend's self-harm as betrayal, not help.

Teens disclose based on who feels safe, not who's actually equipped to help.

A friendship can be rebuilt or replaced. A person cannot.

Last weekend, I led a two-hour workshop for 50 teens about mental health stigma and how to get better at asking for and offering help. I created one activity: help or harm. I read a statement aloud, and the teens yelled out “help” if they thought the action was helpful, or “harm” if it was harmful.

This was the last statement I read: “Texting a friend’s parent behind their back because you are worried about them.” And the room erupted in a mess of “help” and “harm” shouted over each other. When I asked for a show of hands for who thought this was harmful, an overwhelming number of hands shot up.

“Does your answer change if you are scared your friend is going to hurt themselves?” I asked.

A few hands went down, but not many.

I asked why they thought it was harmful.

“Because then your friend won’t trust you.”

“Because no one wants someone going behind their back.”

“Because you’re gonna get them in trouble with their parents.”

Every one of those reasons made complete sense to........

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