Self-harming!

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I am very worried about my daughter (7). It has only happened twice so far in about 2 months, but she has started to "punish" herself for her behaviour. Today, after she pushed her little brother and stepped on his head she was sent to her room to calm down. I heard her banging and giggling and when I came in she had a massive red bruise on her forehead. She banged her head against the bed frame. She has done this once before, and afterwards claims it doesn't hurt her. It looks soooo bad though!
I have explained to her that her punishment was already staying in her room, and that we don't want her punishing herself, but I am worried this could become something regular. Any parents with a similar problem out there?

Hi earthymama, We have only just gone through the diagnosis process with my 5 year old son in the last month (although we kind of knew he had ASD previously just from our own research). My son has on several occasions in the past 6 months shown the behaviour you are describing . The first time, was at school, when he was told off by a teacher (for something minor) - He sat down and started kicking himself in the forehead vigorously (I did not witness this but it was reported to me by the teachers) Since then this behaviour has re-occurred several times - always to punish himself for something fairly minor. Once while walking through a carpark I told him to stop wiggling around and hold my hand because there were many cars about - He picked up a rock and pushed it into his eye to punish himself. To witness this as a parent is tragic. I think we sort of became afraid to correct him in any but the gentlest way, and although the last couple of months he has not been self harming, he still has very dark thoughts. When I say dark I mean the worst. He says at times he wishes he was dead and why don't we just throw him in the bin. We try really hard to make him feel loved and valued and let him know that he is clever and special. But it is like he can't feel our love or hear our words. You can feel the pain of your child but how do you help them? Unfortunately I can offer you no solutions, I just wanted you to know that you are not alone in struggling with this and I know how it breaks your heart. We are going to take him to a psychologist - what else can be done?

Thank you, jerusha! We are definitely going to seek help from a psychologist as well, but sometimes it just helps talking to other people with similar experiences, Thanks for sharing and hope it gets better soon!

I don't know if this exactly applies to your daughter, but for us, it was really not productive to do the punishment thing. Instead, underlining what the natural consequences are, instructing, redirecting, and trying to help modify overly rigid rules in my daughter's head were much better. It always came back to explaining the world, explaining other people, and working to help her find an appropriate path if something bothered her, with a concrete plan what she could do.

I never wanted my children to have my voice inside their heads punishing them. I want to be the voice inside their heads saying what the right thing to do is. And explaining that when someone is unfair, we try to understand, get help, look for a solution. We don't need to leap into action to punish infractions. This isn't every child, but for a child with ASD who over generalizes and who wants to follow the rules, talking about punishment for bad behavior may just not be an effective tool. That isn't every child with ASD, but it was me growing up, I still haven't any understanding of my mother sending me to my room other than cruelty, and it was my teenage daughter with ASD as well. I am guessing your daughter might have ASD? If that's the case, find what works and do it. Work with a psychologist for help if you like, but keep in mind most of the experience is with boys so they will need to work closely with you to discover what works and what doesn't and not keep up things that aren't helpful.

It was not easy, but I found a good OT and good speech therapist, they worked wonders for helping my daughter understand and be willing to do what adults asked more, as well as the speech therapist helped her communicate what she needed in a way we adults would validate and respond to in elementary school. There just weren't any behavior issues that didn't stem from sensory or communication challenges. When that's the case getting to the root of the problem is going to work much better than trying to shift your child's behavioral response to the confusing or overwhelming.

I hope the above made sense?

That's how it started for me. When was about 10 years old. I just couldn't figure out what I was dong wrong, but sensed there was something intrinsically wrong with me (back then I didn't have a diagnosis.) I think in a way I was trying to join the side of others and show that I didn't like myself either. Like I could somehow separate myself from myself as if saying, "I know, I'm such a dufus." It started with smacking myself in the head, but escalated when I was a teenager to cutting. I'm 43 and I still can't get over this. I hadn't self-harmed in 3 years, but went over the edge last week and cut my arm again.
Obviously I don't have much advice on how to deal with this as I am still struggling. If you're lucky enough to get a psychologist who isn't an idiot (and I can tell you this is harder than you'd think,) that could help. There isn't even a lot of literature on it, which confounds me because it has become so prevalent among teens.
One thing that might help is to get something that your child can direct his anger towards other than himself. For example, a punching bag is great! It gets you physically moving which helps burn off the negative energy and you can punch the crap out of it, pretending it is whatever is upsetting you.

I want to try again to respond. I would think about the situation and what might be happening and then try something, depending what I thought was going on. In addition to bringing in a professional if I was worried this wasn't transient.

If my child is generally too rough, does she know better? I would give her dolls and teach her how to take care of and play gently so there's not a problem as she learns if she doesn't. Or notice if she is sensory seeking and might not understand what feels ok to her is too rough for others, in which case address as a sensory issue---physical work, sensory diet, swinging, etc.

If my child is angry a lot I would think about whether it is specifically at her brother or general. If at her brother, is there something she is jealous of or needs that could be worked in more appropriately? If general, does she need help getting her needs net, is she frustrated just dealing with people? Perhaps role play, if it is a school issue, can anything be changed to make life easier?

The above might not relate to your situation, and I'm not certain if your daughter has ASD. I just want to convey that if she does, when you encounter what seems to be an emotional/behavioral problem, it can become that, but for a child with ASD, the origin of difficult problems is often in a sensory or communication difficulty. And that by addressing this, you are parenting in a way that will maintain your child's trust and respect for you so that when you say no, your child will trust you enough that no means no and your rules count. Because it isn't punishment fundamentally that allows us to guide our children, it's trust, it's attachment, it's love. In my opinion.

I do not use physical punishment. It is prohibited in this household. For many reasons, but this one included.

We do have consequences, and as Waterfalls already said, we try to keep them as naturally related to the offending behavior as possible.

I do not necessarily believe it was wrong to send her to her room in this situation. Perhaps the difference would be that instead of sending to her room as "punishment," I would have sent my child to their room after saying something like "You are aware that in this family, we do not lay hands on one another. It seems you must be feeling a bit overwhelmed now, so I want you to go to your room and when you feel better, let's talk about it."

Now, for some kids, that is way too verbal, but for mine it works.

Some kids do not feel pain well. The fact that she was giggling makes me think it is was some odd kind of role-playing, trying to get a handle on punishment. When my son was very little he would giggle when he hurt himself, like his wires were crossed. It was unintentional but very difficult to deal with b/c I had to guess if he was really hurt. She may not feel it as pain, and I can see why you would worry about it turning into a habit.

So, I would probably be hover-mom for awhile and if I had to punish, make it a time-out non-punishment punishment with someone there. We did that when being alone was scary, and so it was too much punishment.

I would make him go to his room and stay with him and called it a calming time-out (vs. a punishment one--which we were phasing out) I would explain he needed to calm down and I would help him. At that time, just about everything he was doing that warranted punishment was meltdown caused and so standard punishments were not working, anyway.

I self harm out of frustration, its not a conscious decision it just starts happening ill punch myself in the forehead repeatedly either from frustration with myself or other people

I have read plenty of research on the dangers of corporal punishment on children. The overwhelming evidence is that smacking your child leads to externalising behavior such as aggression.

It's not a quantum leap to suggest that ASD kids who are physically punished or who are frustrated need to vent or externalise and this can manifest either in hurting others or themselves.

For the latter the child's environment should be examined to see if he/she is being bullied, bored or if they are frustrated by parental restrictions or punishment,

To be fair to the OP, it was never stated that physical punishment was ever used on this particular child.

I feel compelled to say that.

My son banged his head from about 18 months to around 3 or 4 years old. He occasionally self-harms in other ways. I was unable to find any good advice when I asked for it at the time, and it was very hard. In hindsight, it doesn't seem so bad. He was younger, so it was easier to provide softer environments and less stress. His self-harm is rarer now and is more varied. I don't really do anything "in the moment", other than remove distractions. Someone trying to stop you would just give more reason to self-harm. I watch him though, and would intervene if he looked like he could do major damage. Working on all of the assumed compounding factors is what helps.

My brother self-injured when we were kids. He is NT. He still self-injures occasionally, albeit more mildly. He has a scar on his forehead from self-injury. And yet, he is a highly successful ivy-league trained professional, husband, and loving father.

Both my son and my brother have dealt with perfectionism attitudes which I believe was a major contributing factor for both of them. They are also both oldest children.



With the giggling, it sounds like it might be a role play scenario to me also. I don't have access to proper words to say what I want here, but I don't mean anything very negative. Self-harm isn't good, obviously, ah...my words are disappearing.

If it is about "self-punishment", I would want to notice if perfectionist belief systems are a driving force. If they are, find ways to combat that. Some examples include:
-put out your own mistakes in healthy ways
-adopt a family attitude that mistakes are learning opportunities
-

Kids who were never spanked, hit or bite. It's human nature to lash out when cornered. That is for both parents who have and have not spanked. Words missing.

"We're only saying that love's a force that's powerful and strange. People make bad choices when they're mad or scared or stressed. But throw a little love their way and you'll bring out their best. True love brings out the best. Everyone's a bit of a fixer-upper, that's what it's all about."

I will edit later.

I think it is insensitive that some immediately suggest if a child is harming themselves that it is perhaps caused by parents physically punishing the child. As I mentioned previously we have the same issue with our 5 year old self harming at times. He is not physically punished by us or by any others, only himself.

I think in our case that perhaps the perfectionism that was raised may be closer to the mark. Those with ASD can have a certain rigidity of thought - a picture of how things should be, and any deviation from this ideal can cause a strong reaction. In my son's case he seems to have a picture in his head of how he should be that is perfect beyond any reason. When anything he does does not meet his ideal or if there is a suggestion from others that he should do something differently, he can be inconsolable. The trigger can be something as minor as his pencil slipping off the page when he is colouring a picture, or someone asking him to turn the volume down on his radio. Most often he will try to punish himself in other ways, such as putting a favourite toy in the bin, but he also punishes himself physically at times.

It makes me sad reading about rigidity of thought for those with ASD--because I hear my daughter complain about the rigidity of typical people at school quite often. And I am periodically hurt by what seems to me the rigidity of thought of typical people.

It's hard to get past the frustration when things don't go as we want, or expect, and that's got nothing to do with being ASD of NT. What I think is that those we don't understand seem rigid and stubborn and the reactions excessive. And that when any of us, whatever our label, ASD or NT, find a way to see what makes sense about someone else's behavior or reaction, things go much better.

Finding a way to understand the experience of a child can shift rigid and negative to willing to try. Can help with regaining some control. Can allow for connection, can allow love to matter.