Mine was a severe headbanger, and he was at his worst around 18 months - 2 years old. he stopped completely for a while, but when my husband deployed again, it slowly started comeing back. I think part of it is him missing dh, and not being able to express his feelings or understand why his Dad is no longer home every night.
I haven't found a solution really. I can normally tell by how severe it is, how to best handle it (trying to calm him, redirect, or give him space and time alone in his room to calm down if the first two solutions don't help)
Headbanger started at 4 months. when angry! Could this be a need for some certain kind of stimulation of somekind. I say this isn't ok!As long as Daniel's mood is ok he doesn't do strange behavior things like this. I give him deep back rubbs also.Yes. Jason bangs his head, slaps himself on the head and legs, and has occasionally bitten his arm or hands, though not hard enough to leave marks or draw blood.
He used to pull on his eyelashes, but that has since ceased.
Hi, Tiffany!
Unfortunately, I don't know why Jason stopped doing this. He didn't do it for very long, though, thankfully, and he stopped on his own. The only thing I can tell you is that -in Jason's case- it definitely appeared to be stress related, rather than self-stimulatory.
My son used to bite his hands and wrist. He stopped on his own. We started using PECS around the same time. I don't know if haveing a way to ask for what he wanted helped or if he just out grew it.My little guy has bitten himself badly and deeply for years and years with nothing helping until he went on risperdal last month - now the biting is rare.My son used to bite his forearm when he was little and unable to communicate. That stopped once he learned sign language, so we think it was his way of expressing frustration.
Evie - he has recently starting pulling on his eyelashes. What, if anything, did you do to get Jason to stop?
Thanks,
Tiffany
Daughter is a skin peeler, hits herself and pulls on parts of her body. If her hand won't do what she wants like draw a straight line she trys to take it off.
My son head bangs and used to claw at his face a lot. In both cases when communication improved so did these (picture exchange and signing) also brushing and compressions helped.
mu daughter had a lot of the same issues as posted here...Risperdal has made a differnce for us.
We went through a pretty severe hair pulling episode about 2 years ago. At one point he had pulled out all of his eyelashes, some of his eyebrows, and a large strip on the crown of his head. Poor kid had to take a passport photo during this time, and it's just painful to look at it now
He also did the eyelash-pulling thing, but that passed rather quickly. Usually, it seemed more out of being aware of the "fringe" above his sight line than anything else, or if he was pre-occupied with something else.
The headbanging has alleviated enormously since he was tested for allergies and found to be highly allergic to tomatoes. It's also continued to decline since his ability to communicate has increased. It does come back though, when he's angry or stressed enough to where he can't express himself with either his words or his PECS...then he'll run and bang his head for a minute, then come back for a hug to calm down. I've noticed lately that he will come for "bear hugs" when he begins to feel frustrated or not feeling "safe"...the deep pressure seems to stave off the meltdown and allows him to regroup and try to communicate again.
hi my son mckenzie 2 is beeing assesed for autism at the moment and i was wondering if any of you have ever had to deal with your child self harming? at first it just started with slapping himself but now he bites himself very hard sometimes drawing blood and pinches and scratches himself he just gets so angry with himself he want to hurt himself when he is doing it he can not feel the pain but afterwards when he has calmed down he crys with pain i just want to know if there are any of you who have dealt with a similar situation, thank you My son was a fierce head banger from about 1-3 years old. Seems to have outgrown that for now He also has poked his eyeballs and sticks his fingers waaaaay into his ears. It's getting better...he seems to do it when he's bored now rather than when he is angry.The worst battle I had to fight was with fiid. Unless I give him sugary foods, sometimes he will starve himself for 4 days or more.