[Lilly's Mommy]

Lilly turned 2 at the end of March, and in the last couple of weeks has begun a new and disturbing behavior. When she gets frustrated or angry she hits herself on the head or face.

At first I tried the "be nice to yourself" approach, but it didn't seem to sink in. Then, for the past week we've tried the "ignore it, maybe she's looking for negative attention" approach. Tonight, with DH here to witness a bad scene that lead to a time-out (which resulted in more self-hitting), we decided we weren't willing to just ignore her treating herself this way anymore.

Have you encountered this behavior with your child? What seemed to be most effective in teaching him/her how to handle anger and frustration?

[Erin_1712]

We had a similar issue. M would hitt, scratch and pinch himself. He had bad excema that was not taken care of that caused the scratching to be a bad habit that has since gone away after the excema cleared up. But the hitting and banging his head when he is mad. He had hit his head so hard he will get a bloody nose. He would also stick his finger up his nose to make it bleed because he realized once it was bleeding he would have to come out of timeout to have it dealt with. Finally I got fed up with 5 nosebleeds a day and left him in timeout. Blood everywhere. He screamed hit his head and wiped blood on the floor and wall. He stayed in timeout then had to change his shirt and get a new one and wipe the walls off. Two days after that he stopped. But will still hit himself or pinch and bang his head when mad. Mostly for attention. We just ignore it and it goes away for awhile. And it has never been so bad since then but I am not sure if the hitting in this situation is the same thing. Although M did alot of damage to his face with the nosebleeding thing the best way to change the behaviour was ignore it and make him clean up his own mess after. It did take a few days to see a change in the behaviour though.

[qs mom]

My son did this. I was not prepared for it at all. He pulled his hair out by the handfuls and slapped himself so much and so hard that he bruised himself.

I stood outside and could hear the slaps from inside his room. I'll bet my neighbors thought I beat him.

It is hard to get through. Try holding. I would pick up my son and hold and rock him gently. But my son is sensory delayed, he requires a firm touch. I would hold him tightly. A light touch freaks him out.

It is almost 5 years later and when he is upset, I have to knead his shoulders or alternately squeeze his shoulders.

Try the firm hold. Her sensory could be going off track. Talk to her while doing it. Let her know she's safe.