How normal is it for 4yr olds to self-harm?

[saadia]

Ds1 (4) has just started deliberately scratching himself when he gets angry. If we tell him not to do something or tell him off about something he says he is going to scratch himself and then proceeds to scratch his arm.

At the moment we are just calmly saying "that's not a nice thing to do, don't hurt yourself" and are hoping he will stop when he sees it's not causing much reaction, but I just wondered if others had experienced this and how common it was.

I don't know the answer for you, I'm afraid, but my dd1 used to pull her hair out if she got frustrated when she was 2. She's stopped now - I assume it was just a phase?

Hmm, my DS1 would do something like this. He doesn't, but it wouldn't surprise me.

It doesn't sound like "normal" self-harm, which is generally kept hidden. He's just worked out that scratching himself bugs you, but you don't punish him for it, so it's a good way to bug you, iyswim.

My DS1 has gone through phases of banging his head on things or otherwise hitting himself (not hard though), to annoy me.

dgs who is only 23 months sometimes slaps his own face if he has been naughty

I don't know the answer for you, it does sound a bit of a concern to me

dd aged 2 pulls hair bites her fingers and bangs head on floor when having a tantrum im assuming its a phase and eventually she will stop it

Oh, and I wouldn't worry, and stick to your current method, which sounds entirely sensible. May take a while to work.

Is he scratching himself hard? Drawing blood? Or just leaving little red marks?

There was an episode of House of Tiny Tearaways with a deaf girl (aged 2-3 I think)who would really bang her head against a wall when having a tantrum (to the extent she was left with bruising).

Tanya Byron (is that her name?) advised parents to completely ignore it as she would stop doing it if she had no reaction and, sure enough, she stopped as soon as they gave her no attention for it.

Thanks everyone for your advice. It is worrying to see and to think that he has come up with this all by himdelf. We'll just carry on as we are and hope that he stops. Ds is very sensitive and does have a temper and I want him to learn ways to manage it more rationally.

NQC he's not drawing blood, but he announces it loudly and then comes right in front of us to do it so he knows it must upset us. But you're right that it's good he's not doing it in secret.

I'd ignore it entirely, I think. Don't even tell him not to do it, just stop looking at him, wander off.

It does sound alarming, but he is just doing it to wind you up. That is one of his most important jobs, as your son.

Like NQC I could imagine ds doing this once he thinks of it. I think it is a sort of reaction to us as parents using the kind of "If you don't....then I will......" discipline. Our children are not able to confiscate our things or whatever, so they threaten other things, ie "If you don't let me go outside then I will hit you." You can see it makes sense once they have heard us use "If...then" discipline methods.

Ds tends to say things like "Well if you don't let me.....then I won't play with it at all!" He hasn't yet worked out that this doesn't actually bother me. I would imagine your son's behaviour is along similar lines, 1) he doesn't entirely understand that hurting himself doesn't literally, physically hurt you, and / or 2) he knows it upsets you and is doing it as a punishment. It's actually very logical and ingenious. I would try to back off from all punitive "If...then" punishments and instead use "We don't......., let's......." type guidance instead, or some other sort of negotiation. HTH.

Yes NQC, winding us up is his forte.

F&Z I think you're absolutely right, I use this blackmail/bribery and threats as a form of discipline constantly - "if you don't stop hitting your brother/eat your dinner etc then you can't watch Lazytown/go swimming/play outside" as at the moment it's the easiest way of controlling him, but now that you've spelled it out I think I do need to find other forms of discipline.

From his point of view, it can't be good to be threatened into obedience. I suppose this scratching is his way of telling us that. Thank you so much for your insight.

Saadia, if you are interested I recently read a wonderful book called "Punished By Rewards" by Alfie Kohn which outlines an alternative approach to discipline. It completely challenged most of my ideas about behaviour and how to deal with it.

Now if I could only carry it out in reality :)

Difficult, isn't it?

F&Z sounds like an interesting book but possibly difficult to implement.

And yes, it is very difficult, much more so than I had anticipated. Ds has also recently started lying, blaming everything on his brother so I can see things are going to get even more complicated.