Bangs head on ground - LOL

ilovemybaby wrote: I know it's not really good or funny... but when Abby throws a tantrum she bangs her head on the ground.
Anyone else got a child that does this?

Do you just ignore it? I have been ignoring it.

She will also smack herself on the hand/arm or leg when I have smacked her on the hand.

It's like she is saying "it aint workin mama I don't care" LOL

So ... I guess we are going to use Timeouts from now on. I figured I will put her in her carseat or highchair since that is the only way to keep her in one place at her age. What do you think?
I don't want her to have a bad association with her carseat or highchair though.
And she is far too big for the playpen. She just pushes it around the room.

luvmykids replied: I don't know, mine did (and still do) have tantrums, lying on the floor, kicking and screaming, but none of the other. I guess I would maybe put her in her room with a gate up or something? Sorry not much help!

ilovemybaby replied: Yeah. But she can just play with her toys in there LOL
I thought of one way... my mum gave me this thing that you put them in in a chair (instead of using a highchair) at the table. We don't use it for meal times because we have the highchair. So I could use that.

kit_kats_mom replied: I met another little girl who would bang her head on the ground. The ped said it she had a sensory integration disorder.

This kid would slam her head into the tile when she was mad. It was an awful thunking noise. Her mom just ignored it. Made me sad.

ilovemybaby replied:
What on earth??!! What is that? She is more than clever.
I will go google it.

ilovemybaby replied: Well I did some reading on SID and I don't think she has that. She hardly ever does it. She only does it sometimes. Not every time she has a tantrum or even every day.
I think she just does it to get attention. Because we ignore her tantrums. She never used to do it either. She only just started doing it recently.

And she doesn't have any of the other signs of SID.
If she did have it it would be so mild. Like my OCD.

redchief replied: We had two that did that. The results have been mixed so far. The son who did that is in his first year of engineering school. The daughter who did it has recently sworn off boys and relationships forever.

We told our pediatrician about our son doing that and he just kind of nodded and blew us off. Now we were really concerned so we asked what he thought we should do about it. He said, "Are you banging his head on the floor?"

I said, "Of course not. He's doing it himself because he's mad."

Doc, "Okay then."

I ask, "What should we do?"

Doc shrugged his shoulders as he finished the exam, "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

He looked up from my son and said, "When it hurts, he'll stop."

He was right. I loved that doc.

ilovemybaby replied: LOL That is true. She only bangs it on the carpet which I am pretty sure does not hurt her. It probably doesn't feel that great but with the amount of times she has fallen off something onto her back and hit her head on the carpet... she is probably used to it by now!

I guess there are the few kids that have SID and will keep doing it even if it is hurting them. I can imagine banging your head on a tile floor would hurt

kit_kats_mom replied: Probably isn't anything.. Sorry, I didnt' mean to scare you. I was really distrubed by the child and the whole family dynamic. It was the most bizarre and sad thing I'd ever seen. I think the mom's reactcion was worse than the actual head banging.

ilovemybaby replied:
That's ok. You didn't really scare me. I was just like "what?!" I'd never heard of it before. I would have been worried if it was something she was doing all the time. I think she just does it out of frustration when she doesn't get what she wants.

And I totally agree that that mothers reaction is sad. I would be very worried if my child was banging their head on a tile floor all the time.
Wasn't she worried that he would hurt himself?

Brias3 replied: Oh, Aliyah used to do this too from about 14-19 months. Drove me nuts but I never ignored it! For her, it was totally just a reaction thing- she was never doing it hard enough for it to actually leave a mark or hurt her but I still didn't like the prospect of it. I would simply just move her onto her playmat or carpet when she did this in the kitchen and she would sometimes get so irritated, trying to walk back into the kitchen to be on the tile and have more "noise effect" as I called it. She'd also do it against the fridge and I'd do the same- repeatedly move her onto carpet or a soft surface. Half the time, she'd stop the head banging once I'd moved her and just continue on in a "regular" tantrum- the tantrum on carpet wasn't quite the effective attention-getter for her that the tile was. This eventually stopped.

Sounds to me this is similar to what your daughter is doing- more of a reaction type thing than anything.

Sorry I don't have further suggestions!

MyBrownEyedBoy replied:
This is perfect. I am going to print this and put it on my kitchen fridge. Thanks, Ed, for making me laugh.
Logan used to do this head banging tantrum thing, he has stopped recently. I would simply ignore him and move to another room. If he followed, I'd move again. I took away the "audience" for his performance.