another head hitting question

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-10-2004
another head hitting question
7
Thu, 04-10-2008 - 11:38am

Ladies, I think I've figured out the headbutting me situation and am working to diffuse it.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 12-19-2004
Thu, 04-10-2008 - 12:39pm

I am not much help, but wanted to offer HUGS.


My 2yo bangs his head, usually on the wood floor, when he is angry. A couple times he has hit it just right and split the skin which of course did not feel good... but he still does it. We will give him a firm no and explain we do not bang our head when we are angry.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Thu, 04-10-2008 - 12:41pm

Peter used to self-injure. At first he did it out of pure rage, then he realized that it got him a lot of attention and quite effectively distracted the caregiver (he was in daycare and then school/daycare for many years) so he did it for effect.

When he did it for rage, he would do it until he hurt himself -he usually bit his hands or scratched his arms. Sometimes he hit his head. Once rage turned to pain I would know because the voice changes. However, I would not offer any sympathy. He might come to me holding the injured part and I would calmly explain that he had hurt himself, it had been his choice and I wasn't going to make it better if it was his choice. (people now wonder how I can stay so calm with my kids. I was trained by the best)

So he stopped really hurting himself.

Then he started to do it for effect. I would completely, absolute ignore this behaviour. Blank it out like he wasn't even there. He stopped doing it in front of me. My problem was training other adults to blank out the behaviour. The wonderful Ines, who ran his daycare has the softest heart and she couldn't -no matter how much she understood the concept on paper- NOT say anything when he self-injured. So it continued mostly there for a long time. Then one summer he was not at Ines's and it stopped because he was on a break from his (unwitting) enabler.

I don't know if that is what the "experts" will tell you to do, but that is what I did. It is tough and scary to live though and obviously I watched him closely through these episodes (without appearing to) and if I thought he was in danger of really *injuring* himself (as oppossed to creating a superficial boo-boo) I would step in straightaway and restrain him. I also learned techniques to calm him and break a meltdown before it got to the self injury stage, which helped a lot.

I hope this helps.

-Paula


visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-10-2004
Thu, 04-10-2008 - 1:06pm

Paula, thanks!!!

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 04-10-2008 - 1:47pm

Just wanted to say that we ignore this kind of behavior too.

                                

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2008
Thu, 04-10-2008 - 2:20pm

i had one psychologist


iVillage Member
Registered: 01-30-2008
Thu, 04-10-2008 - 5:26pm
My son will bang his head on the floor.

Kim

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-15-2006
Fri, 04-11-2008 - 1:27pm

Chloe does this.

- Christina mom to-

Chloe (10)    Aiden(8)