Robin Barker goes into this very well in her Mighty Toddler book. It is apparently quite common from 9mth-2yrs to use this sort of behaviour as part of Tantrum or attention seeking.
She suggests the move away and distract and try and stay calm. Easier said then done, perhaps distract her with her favourite toy.
It is very very common. While "ignoring it" may send an undesirable message so can making a fuss of it - the last thing you want to reinforce is "Mum and Dad must like my headbanging because they are really interested whenever I do it".
Generally, try teaching her the idea of "gently" or"slowly" - use it in the context of shutting things and being gentle to heads and other people - in a year or so she should get it.........
Does she have some other means of making a ginormous noise and attracting attention? I'm wondering if providing a couple of saucepan lids might provide her with an alternative.
If it really hurt her she wouldn't do it - the sad surprise when my DS discovered the difference between headbanging on carpet-covered wood and head-banging on the metal strip at the edge of the carpet was pretty spectacular.
Hi, thanks for all your replies! I'm in the middle of organising a housemove and haven't been on here since I began this thread - sorry!
It's definitely, definitely not artificial colours/preservatives - I'm really careful about how we eat, so it's organic wholefoods and homemade all the way. I don't plan on introducing processed foods for quite some time yet, if at all. But I know that can be a problem with older children, can't it? My mother swears I used to go ballistic after anything red when I was young.
I really appreciate the suggestions about keeping calm whilst redirecting her to other activities...I actually think the whole reason it's stuck is because, stupidly, the first time it happened my husband and I completely freaked out over it. Which, of course, Miss A thought was hilarious. Sigh. Really, we probably made this a lot worse than it is. We're definitely trying to react in a very even-handed way when it does happen...she actually stopped for a while and then started up again yesterday, and incidentally we also realised she has been teething again. God. I hope this isn't her chosen form of pain-relief. Anyway. Thank you! Hopefully we can try to put an end to it.
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