Ds (2) hitting his head on the floor/walls on purpose - please help!

[TheTerribleSpider]

Ds has been doing this for a while now, whenever he is cross or frustrated he hits his head very hard off of the floor or walls very hard.

Mostly when another child takes something from him or when he is told off. He won't stand up for himself with other children - he is very passive and then does this.

We have tried various things to get him to stop - for example; ignoring him, distracting him, taking him away from the situation, putting him somewhere softer. None of these have worked.

He has bruises all over his forehead and a particularly big bump from today.

Has anyone else had this? I have heard for so long now that it's a phase, that it will pass etc etc but it doesn't seem to be. I just don't know what to do to stop it.

excuse the two very hards.... overemphasized my point there

Poor you this is awful, we went through it too. We were worried that our DS would do some serious damage when he did this.

We asked our HV for advice and I have just got his book to remind myself what she said...

'' Child seen with parents. Parents worried that he head butts when angry. Parents advised to restrain child and talk to him not to hurt himself''.

We were told to get down to his eye level and talk to him that he will hurt himself, take a favourite toy away when he does it but try to 'catch' him before he ran off to head butt a wall/ door etc.

It will pass. We went to HV to document the hurt he was causing himself afraid that he would end up in hospital and we would get the blame, but we now know that it is a phase and it can and was dealt with in this way as advised. It is frightening though, I hope it passes soon for you

Hi Beanie 4, thanks very much for answering. Do you mind me asking how old your DS was and how long it took for him to stop doing it?

It sounds like it's a case of persevering then? DS seems to have a spectacular temper when he puts his mind to it.

Luckily our HV already knows about this, but you do worry when your child is walking round with a head full of bruises. Arnica cream is my friend!

Hi Spider. My DS3 does this too. He is 17 months and has been doing it since he was about 11 months. He also throws himself on the floor and thrashes around. I can't imagine where he gets the shocking temper from . We have persisted in putting him on a large beanbag (we have one of those huge FatBoy ones) and he has recently shown signs of stopping the performances. It is a phase but one that can take a long time to get through. I guess there's not a lot you can do to avoid the trigger incidents as they are everyday type of things that children need to be able to deal with but anticipating the response and helping them through it, along with the arnica cream, is really all you can do right now. Given that he's 2 now, though, you should be able to start communicating better with him so I hope you'll see things start to ease up soon. Good luck.

I think I know where DS gets his temper from (not me )
Ok I'll try the bean bag, we have little one upstairs and carry on with the time to calm down thing... he's been doing this for just over a year now and it really is tiring.

I'll just keep telling myself it's a phase!

Thanks

TheTerribleSpider, my DS was 18months when we took him to health visitor, I guess it went on for many months, Im sorry I cant recall exactly.

Yes keep going, I personally think looking back, that it is a habit they have to break. I feel that you have to retrain them to manage their anger another way and get them to break out of the ' habit' IYSWIM of hurting themselves.

DS used to run full pelt into things and we had to try and stop him mid-sprint before he did himself damage. In a visitors house he ran full speed ahead into their glass hall door- luckily he was ok but it is frustrating and frightening to see it happening.