Special Needs
AgrippaRidesAgain
member
Purposeful self-injury
AgrippaRidesAgain
member
DS has started scratching his face from his forehead to his chin when he is particularly angry or frustrated about something. He used to hit himself after being corrected as a young toddler, but we taught him to just hit a pillow instead, because he was just venting frustrations. Today, as he was gouging his face, DS yelled that he is doing it so that I know he is mad at me. After everything was over, we sat down and talked about how I already know when he is mad and don't need him to scratch himself, then practiced making different emotion faces and guessing what they were. But, I am not sure that his reason is the real reason. I have no clue where to start fixing this, and am envisioning a teenager cutting himself, so talk me down from my ledge.
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Re: Purposeful self-injury
I don't have any advice since I have a kid who gets so mad that he hurts himself. It started with banging his head for hours on end to the point he would give himself black eyes. Now he bites his hand so hard he often draws blood.
From what we can tell, it is way of handling the emotions he can't express and not for attention. I try to give him choices on how to handle his anger, (hit a pillow, bit his chew toy, get into a pillow cave, become a taco in his blanket) but most of the time he wants the physical pain he causes and nothing I do will distract him and makes it worst. Most of the time When he does it I make sure he is safe, tell him we will talk once he calms down and walks away.
It hasn't stopped the behavior yet, but it has made the tantrums a bit shorter. I continue to remind myself that negative attention is still attention to the behavior and if that is what he is seeking it feeds it. I may be wrong about this, but it's how we handle it in our house even though it is freaky as all get out.
I also worry about a teenager cutting himself but I am hoping by that time we will be able to talk about his anger and have a solid working way for him to handle it all.