A bit concerned by ds1 saying odd things

[bitzermaloney]

Ds1 is 4.3 and talks nonsense a lot of the time, part of his sense of humour I think. But tonight when I told him off for calling his granny silly and sticking his fist out at her, he said 'Oh, now I have to hurt myself because I was rude to Granny...' and started slapping himself on his arm (not hard), then he said 'Oh that's not hard enough, I'll have to do it on the wall', then went and touched his arm to the wall, all the while looking at me (I presume to check out my reaction). It reminded me that he said something similar a couple of week ago as well.

This quite disturbed me though I don't think I showed it... he has never been physically punished in any way so I don't understand where it came from.

Should I be worried about this and how do I deal with it?

[bitzermaloney]

bump...

[verybadhairdoo]

i agree it all sounds a little odd. i guess the first thing to get to the bottom of is whether he is doing this just for fun / reaction or whether he seriously wants to hurt himself....if you are thinking the latter i could only suggest some medical advice perhaps??? has he had any major upheaval in his short little life??

[schmee]

Could he have picked it up at school? One of my boys has started talking about cutting heads off etc since he started his new nursery school. I've explained to him why it's a horrible thing to say and now I'm ignoring it except for saying in a non-phased way "that's not nice". Not really working that well yet though!

If a friend falls over he also hits himself on the head to cheer the other person up - I've seen that some of his school friends have copied him on this one

I'm sure it's fine and just a stage. You're not concerned that he might have been exposed to someone who does physically punish, presumably?

[bitzermaloney]

Thanks for the replies. I'm sure no one else has hit him either. He's definitely not actually trying to hurt himself - the self-slapping and wall-touching were extremely gentle (literally just touching the wall). It does seem to be to see what reaction he gets, but it just bothers me that he has had the idea. I suppose it's possible he picked it up from peers.

He is extremely talkative and uses words very imaginatively but also manipulatively, I think - he rarely says anything straightforwardly at the moment. ie. currently instead of saying 'Can I have some juice?' he will say something like 'Oh, I will never have juice again, will I? You don't want me to have juice, do you Mummy?'

Just wondering if this is sort of related. Have to say it is very, very annoying...

[monkeyflippers]

Sounds like he is testing and trying to understand the world.

[HumphreyCobbler]

A bit annoying but not anything to worry about

he has been picking up on all the different kinds of interaction people have with each other and trying them out.

[verybadhairdoo]

sounds like he is a very clever boy - i'll never have juice again as much as that is annoying you have to give him the credit for being so witty!! if he's quite gentle and is focussed on the reaction then I think you'll just have to wait it out and try not to give attention to it. probably just a phase he's going thru, like monkeyflippers says testing the waters a bit.

[zam72]

My 5yo says stuff like that since starting school last year - 'ooop...I did X (told off for) I'd better hit myself' and slaps his head (not hard) and pretends to fall over. All done with smile on face and just in a bit of a spanner type of way. With him he's getting more boyish...into bashing/killing/knocking over (dinosaurs...not people!) - testosterone goes into overdrive as they near 6 apparently. I think for DS1 its a case of checking my reactions - I might say 'oh, don't say/do that' but tend to brush it off, try to appear nonchalant. If he was doing it more in anger/upset then I'd be more concerned. But I think the worse thing at the moment is to draw too much attention to it.

I've noticed that if some of the boys at school knock another kid over (often my DS1 as he's wee) they'll kid around and say 'look XX, I'm hitting myself - I'll poke myself in the eye' to kind of make the crying kid laugh and partly probably to stop themselves getting into trouble with the teachers. I've wondered if that's been a source of my DS1 suddenly thinking slapping/hitting his head is a good/funny idea.

I'd keep an eye on his general behaviour - could speak to pre-school/school about if they've noticed anything untoward. But hopefully just a weird phase.

[bitzermaloney]

OK thank you, I feel less worried now. Will just keep an eye on it!