Help with a gentle solution - my 13 month old deliberately hits her head!

Hi there,

I'm hoping that some of you might be able to help me with this issue, as I would like to try and resolve it in a way that's respectful and doesn't use fear as a basis for the solution (which I fear is central to many forms of discipline). My daughter is a super-exuberant, super-happy, super-outgoing baby who is very loving. As she is young, she is still learning about gentleness, and at times she's been quite, erm, violent in her displays of affection (a child's emotions are intense!), though she seems to be improving on that front.

Over the past few weeks, though, she's been engaging in an activity that we find particularly disturbing, and we just don't know how to teach her that it isn't okay, without resorting to something like ignoring her - which lots of people have suggested - as personally I feel that to be really manipulative. Like, if you do something wrong, you will be abandoned. I can see how that would be effective, but I find the underlying message really frightening. Anyway!

If Aurelia really, really wants something (such as wanting to go outside when it is pouring rain), she will smash her head against the door. Hard. Until she has big red marks. In this case, I suppose it's her tantrum strategy. Sometimes she will do it when she doesn't want anything at all - I'll be in the kitchen preparing her lunch, and I will hear banging, and it will be her, smashing her head against the window, and looking at me with a big grin on her face. These are the most common incidences. It seems as though she uses it as a way to get us to go to her immediately; we rush over and explain to her that she cannot do it because she will hurt herself (how she finds it funny, I'll never know), but she still continues.

On another level I'm really worried because - does it indicate we're not giving her enough attention? My husband and I are co-parents, so she's always either with one of us or both of us, and she enjoys a mix of independent play and games and activities with her parents (we spend time with other children and are planning on taking her to a playgroup soon, too). Do you think she wants more involvement with us? I don't really know how much more we can give, as we're basically playing with her unless we're preparing food, cleaning, etc. In other words, most of our time is direct involvement with our child.

How can we really make her understand (though I think she does already, really) that what she is doing isn't good for her? Does anyone have any suggestions? I really don't know what to do - a sharp 'no!' followed by an explanation usually just leads to her shaking head and saying somberly, 'noo, nooo' over and over, so I know she understands us. She just wants to keep doing it! Any suggestions would be really helpful, thanks for reading this long post!

At 13 months, I would simply use a distraction method.

I'd physically remove her from what she was doing and move her on to something else, a toy, game, story etc.

I don't have any quick fix answers but she needs to stop this immediately as it is dangerous especially hitting her head against glass.

When she does this try placing her on a chair or something similar away from things. After explaining why she is there leave her for a few minutes they tell her she can get down. She does it again back on the chair. I think it is just attention seeking as it sounds like you both spend a wonderful amount of time with her.

All the best dealing with this. :)

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.

Hope that helps :pray:

I love your dd's name...gorgeous!

As an idea, could you limit the amount of preservatives and colours in the food she eats? Head banging is associated with some artificial colours.

Hth

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.