7 year old constantly injuring herself and making a fuss

[Ineedmybru]

I'm not sure how best to word it but my 7 year is quite clumsy in some ways (although she does dance, acro etc and can be very graceful). She injures herself multiple times a day, stubbing a toe, tripping up etc.

EVERY time she does she melodramatically wails, and sobs, and declares the bone to be broken, and when she's at school she is taken to the office and given ice and the school phones if she is very upset or it's been a head injury.

I don't really know how to deal with this. I think it's partly an attention seeking thing but I don't know exactly what the best response to that would be. We usually just say 'oh dear, here's a kiss better, back to playing' or if she's upset will give her a quick cuddle but I don't think we make too much of it. Or too little. I don't know.

She did break her arm when she was 5 and obviously got a lot of sympathy then, it seems to have ramped up since then which is understandable but I thought she might have outgrown it.

She's also complained of breathing difficulties at times. We obviously took her to the gp who said there were no signs of athsma and it might be anxiety. Her older brother has recently been diagnosed with athsma.

Is anyone's child similar? And if so how did you deal with it?

Do you think it could be dyspraxia @Ineedmybru?

I don't know, I have wondered that before. She can dance, do gymnastics, she has really good fine motor skills like tying her shoe laces and writing, so I wasn't sure.

My dd has very good fine motor skills but exactly as you describe and can do dance and gymnastics. I think she's slightly hyper mobile which makes for the clumsiness and the distrust in her body sometimes.

I think my dd was doing this because she wanted comfort. Maybe try to put lots of cuddles in when she's not hurt and it might make her focus on it less.

Thank you. At least she is not the only one! We will keep trying to give her positive attention when she hasn't hurt herself. She is quite an anxious child and very hard on herself so I do try to be very loving and gentle with her but it's not always easy.

I’m not sure about the clumsiness but my DD (11) recently suffered with anxiety and often said she couldn’t breathe properly or that her heart rate was too fast. She would constantly ask me to check her pulse. Could there be something going on she’s worried about?

OP, are your initials LN and you're from a North Western town by any chance? Also have a grown up son?

No. Is that someone you know? Maybe this is more common that I thought.

Attention seeking doesn’t mean attention isn’t needed.

So lots of attention and reassurance at other times, and a proper ‘wound inspection’ followed by reassurance that it’s all better now/will feel much better after a nice sleep etc.

If necessary, add the ‘oh dear, perhaps you’d better not go to the park in case you hurt yourself/because you need to rest your poorly toe.’. Something where there’s a benefit to being fit and a mild penalty to being injured. It often clarifies the position!

Have you thought about connective tissue disorders? They can result in children hurting themselves more easily, and it being more painul when they do.

It sounds as though her broken arm really frightened her.

Paradoxically, my super co-ordinated ds used to trip up all the time. Alpha. Risk taker.

My dyspraxic, mildly hypermobile dd wrnt more slowly and didn't trip up ad much.

DS: broken arm x 2, broken ankle x , broken nose x 1, split head x 1, countless grazes.

DD: pulled elbow, split head, dislocated thumb, badly broken leg (came off bicycle), broken collar bone (fell offnhorse). Hardly a graze.

My daughter was exactly like this around that age. She complained of a ‘breathing thing’ for a few years on and off and it was like she was air hungry which I also get when I have anxiety. But she’s a very confident child and doesn’t really suffer with anxiety. She also used to hurt herself a lot, very often her feet for some reason. She broke her 2 front teeth at age 2, had an A&E trip for a big head bang at school, fallen off numerous chairs and bust lips. She would scream blue murder when she hurt herself. I feel like she feels pain very deeply and didn’t think it was for attention.
She’s also an incredible dancer, is good at sport, and has really good handwriting and fine motor skills. I don’t think she is dyspraxic. She’s now 10 and less clumsy. She hasn’t complained of the ‘breathing thing’ for ages. Hopefully it’s something they grow out of. We didn’t do anything different, always hugged her when she was upset and kissed it better. It just sort of stopped.

if she’s adamant that she’s injured - then you should get her checked out. But NO screens in the waiting room, only a reading or puzzle book.

This is my son to a t, down to several dramatic hospitalisation (but for actual injuries and operations, not for stubbed toes...). He's a worrier, clumsy, head in the clouds, but manages fine with football and karate. I've looked into ED because he is double jointed too, but not got too far as he doesn't meet many criteria.

Thanks all. Really useful to hear everyone's experiences. Interesting that some of them are so similar!

I'll keep going, and keep an eye on it.

I told my 7yo last year (when he was calm) that he needed to dial down the dramatics for minor injuries. I explained that I couldn’t tell the difference between a broken nail and his arm hanging off because his reaction was so big for both. I tried to sort out a bit of a scale with him because it was getting ridiculous, and he has improved.

I noticed my kids used to go through real clumsy spells whenever they were having a growth spurt - her clumsiness could be that.

My middle son used to scream blue murder at the slightest injury. The school started ignoring it as he was like the boy who cried wolf… so they missed when he had actually broken his thumb one time. After that he stopped the overreacting as much - we pointed out to him that if he didn’t scream the sane way every time the school would have known he’d actually hurt himself, instead they assumed it was just him being himself.

As this seems to have started after your daughter broke her arm, I’d be inclined to think she’s scared that she’s seriously hurt herself every time. It might be worth talking to her about how strong bones are and how much it takes to break them - some reassurance that she’s unlikely to break something during normal play, but if she does you will make sure the drs fix her like they did with her arm. Or something like that.