Children with trichotillomania are fighting an uphill battle. They often experience overwhelming urges to pull their hair out no matter how badly they don’t want to. Friends and family members start to shun or ridicule them. Parents tell them to “just stop”. They may even seek out psychotherapy or take medications because they think something is wrong with them. All the while, they continue to pull and feel worse and worse about their situation.

The urge to pull for most people is not under their conscious control. This means that they cannot “just stop” because they want to or even if they are threatened. A person with trichotillomania is being told to pull by incorrect signals being sent from their brain due to a neurotransmitter imbalance. This imbalance can be corrected with professionally-guided amino acid therapy (contact us to get started).

However, for a child with trichotillomania family involvement is an essential component to a successful long-term solution. Parents and family members need to know that trichotillomania is not something that can be stopped by thinking about it; willpower is not the answer. Berating, threatening or getting frustrated with a child with trichotillomania is only going to make the problem worse, as stress is one of the underlying reasons neurotransmitters can become imbalanced in the first place.

What a child with trichotillomania needs is loving compassion and understanding. They may want to stop but feel powerless to do so. Listen to them. Hear what they have to say. Let them tell you how they feel. Don’t give them advice about how to quit – you don’t know what they are experiencing; you may be the closest person to them but you cannot understand what it’s like to have your brain sending you the wrong signals unless you actually experience the same thing. This isn’t about helping them as much as it is being there for them.

Most kids with trichotillomania feel isolated and alone; they need to feel safe and to express what is inside them. If you can give them that safe place where they feel accepted for exactly who they are (even if it’s not the person they ultimately want to be) you will pave the way for their recovery.