When DD gets hurt she re-creates it?

sschwege

I've noticed that recently when DD gets hurt let's say she bangs her head on the table by accident when standing up, she will keep doing it on purpose until I either remove her or she is in tears.  Today she slammed her hand between two doors by accident.  Then she was screaming in pain and kept trying to put her hands between the doors and do it again.  I removed her from the room and then she ran over to the another door in the house and was trying to shove her hands into the crack of the door.  This is the first time I have been disturbed by her behavior, before this I just thought it was out of frustration, but seeing her run to another door to do the same thing just really scared me.  

She is an extremely social child.  Has melt-downs like any other kid, but never hurts herself unless it's a case like I mentioned above.  Any thoughts?  I am almost in tears over this. 

sara785

Wonder if she's just trying to understand WHY it hurt when she did this or that. Maybe take her aside right when it happens and explain to her what happens when you hurt yourself?

MMMiller

I agree with pp or maybe she thinks do it once it hurts do it twice it's better? Sometimes its hard to figure out a toddler's logic because they're so busy trying to figure things out themselves.  Don't get too worked up over it, I am sure if you catch her and remove her from the situation enough times and explain to her that she will get another boo boo if she does it again she'll stop.

KateLouise

What is her language like? Is she trying to show you what happened?

Does she need you to verbalise the situation for her? eg. "You bumped your head when you were standing up. You hit the very top of your head. It hurt a lot...." etc etc. 

Just a thought. I agree with pp, she's obviously trying to make sense of it, and I wouldn't be too worried about it. 

sschwege

Thank you so much girls!  I can't tell you how much your responses helped.  I'm typically not the type to get worked up, I was a teacher and nannied for a long time before having DD, up until recently was doing home-daycare, so I've seen a lot.  But I guess pregnancy hormones got the better of me and seeing DD trying to purposely slam her fingers into the crack of the door was alarming to me!  

I considered what you all had said about her trying to make sense of what had happened.  So today when she had her typical toddler accidents, I immediately said to her, "Do you want to see what happened?" and I would show her what caused her spill.  For example for one fall I demonstrated how her foot slipped and her hand hit the chair on the way down and that's why she got hurt.  All three times she got hurt she watched the re-creation and then would do it herself only in slow motion.  Basically trying to make sense of what happened but without hurting herself again.   Thank you again!

mindingpandq

Our LO does this also. I think it's some form of control. They feel out of control and angry that they are hurt so they re-create it to gain control? Our LO also gets very embarrassed by her emotion over getting hurt so she re-creates and also tries to not cry. We just tell her we are here when she is ready.