RE: Self Injury VERY LONG

[Guest guest]

Hey Sandi, Welcome!

Thanks for your great input. It just so happens that as I was putting

to bed, we started playing around a little with her pillow. She

took the pillow from me and started to lightly punch it, almost like she was

afraid to hit it. She said " this is ____ (the boy who made fun of her)

face " and lightly tapped the pillow with her fist. I told her that it

sometimes makes us feel better when we get our mad feelings out by hitting a

pillow. She liked this but seemed hesitant so I felt it best not to press

the issue any further at the time. Will be bringing it up again, that's for

sure!

I'll relax the rules around the house when she comes home now that the end

of the year is here. Thanks for filling us in on what the school day is

really like at the end of the year, as a teacher, you should know.

Thanks again!

Diane

Re: Self Injury VERY LONG

Hi Diane and All,

I am new to the group, but I've been hanging in the shadows listening long

enough -

so I took a shot at some ideas, here we go...

My daughter is 9-almost-10, HFA, started developing (and hormonal behavior)

about a year ago, and has a history of very negative / self critical

behavior. Her language skills sound very much on par with your daughter's.

So far,

we have been able to redirect a lot of self abuse, except for a tendency to

scratch herself until she bleeds if her nails are allowed to grow even a

millimeter.

One thing my husband and I have done is make a policy of giving Allie an

acceptable way to relieve aggressive feelings toward us while feeling

physically

and emotionally safe, such as punching or screaming into a pillow. Also,

when we've had a really bad mother/daughter kind of day one of us might

grab a

pillow and yell " Pillow Fight! " and the whole family joins in to pound each

other until we are all laughing too hard to go on. We have strict rules

about

actions which cause real pain or damage, even during the pillow fights. We

give consistent messages, i.e.: " People don't shove each other, not even

during pillow fights, because people don't hurt each other or themselves. "

BTW,

you might not want to just jump into this if you haven't done it before.

Start slow with a round between you and another family member, then invite

to help you " get them, " or ask for her help if they're getting

you too

good! Try it when she's happy, and make sure she has a few pillow fights

under her belt and feels safe having them. Then step up to one when she's

feeling frustrated with you but not full blown furious and see how it goes.

We have found that after a couple of years of this we are now able to

engage

Allie in using her words a majority of the time. It was a slow process,

but

now most of our pillow fights are just for the fun of it. :-) The most

important thing was that over time Allie learned that it was SAFE to let

her

feelings out, that she could do it without bad things happening, and that

she

could control it.

[From the horse's mouth, so to speak]: I used to say the same kind of thing

you have been to my own daughter. Eventually she got good enough at

communication to tell me that it was making her totally enraged to be TOLD

how she

felt and what she wanted to do. I was just making her more angry.

[i almost cut this next paragraph after reading the wonderful advice from

Amnesty and Sondra, but what the heck it might help, so I'll leave it in.

It

think it just says what they did a different way.]

One thing I do know is that no one can talk to me when my temper is

redlined. If you try to wait until is calm and the anger is

behind her,

she can think clearly about what you are trying to tell her. I have found

that

with Allie, keeping messages in the third person also keeps us from

reopening the bad feelings and starting another round of anger. Something

like:

" Earlier today when you got home from school, it looked as though you were

having

some really unhappy feelings. Please remember to use your words when bad

feelings fill you up inside. People use their words to let the bad

feelings

out a little at a time. When the bad feelings are not trapped inside them

any

more, then people feel better without hurting themselves or others. " Then,

if at all possible I get Allie to PRACTICE and roll play typical things she

could say or do to " let the feelings out a little at a time. " The first

time I

tried to get my dd to scream " I'm so mad at you! " into a pillow, you should

have seen the eye roll I got. She said " Mom that's just embarrassing! "

LOL

Last fall hormones began to make Allie miserable. Her comments about

herself took a real turn toward the scary. At one point, she even said

that she

didn't deserve to live. We were really concerned for her, and we decided

to

get her a therapist. We were trying to find a female therapist who

specializes

in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which Allie has, but in doing so we also

found that we had lucked into a licensed Play Therapist. Allie didn't have

to

say a thing to her. The therapist took Allie into a room full of every

type

of toy you could imagine, from dinosaurs to doll houses, and let Allie

express what was on her mind through what toys she selected to play with

and what

she did with them. If anyone is interested, I should warn that it takes

patience. We are six months into weekly therapy now, and really seeing

progress. Allie plays with and talks to Sally. Last Thursday they sat

cuddled up on

the couch together and read stories about moral choices and talked about

what she would do if it were her in the situation. Three months ago, Sally

was

asking us if we wanted to continue, because Allie still hadn't said a word

to

her. Sally had not worked with a child who had autism before. We told

her

we wouldn't be surprised if it took 6 months before Allie learned to trust

her, and it nearly did.

OH YEAH, and that end of school year thing. Us too, every year. I was a

middle school teacher for mumble, mumble, mumble, years, and for what it's

worth I have believed for several years that I actually know what that is.

Any teacher can tell you that as the year draws to a close the kids get

more

antsy and squirrelly by the day. Every day they're a smidgen more noisy, a

bit more energetic, a little more emotional, they poke each other in lunch

line, chase each other at recess, trip each other in the hall. That means

that

day by day the classroom is a bit more noisy, the students get jostled a

bit

more often, the teacher is more tired and has used up all her energy and

patience that much sooner in the day from dealing with all those twitchy

kids.

Just as you observed, the schedule becomes less and less structured. Any

kids in the building with sensory issues, not just ours, become more and

more

irritated and snappish as the days go by. The entire noise and energy

level in

the whole school becomes more and more unbearable for our kids, bit by bit,

day by day, until they just scream.

Anyway, that's my theory for what it's worth!

So, in response I work EXTRA hard these last few weeks to give Allie LOTS

of

comfort and stress reduction. She gets her favorite foods/snacks/treats,

lots of time with her blankie (her favorite stress reliever) and gamecube,

lots

of pushing in the backyard swing, plenty of rest, and several favorite

activities each week, even if it's just for a few minutes. She doesn't get

grounded if a note comes home about behavior at school, she just gets

hugged and

lots of " Poor sweetie, did you have a bad day? " If she wants a pressure

treatment, she gets it. A foot rub, a back scratch, an extra cookie? You

bet!

Sincerely, my advice is to just keep 's days as full as you can of

things that give her comfort or pleasure, and try to ride out these last few

weeks as best you can. Whenever you catch in a quiet mood, you

could even talk to her about how stressful these weeks can be. Tell

that whenever she comes in from school and uses her words to say, " I've had

a

BAD DAY! " you'll treat her to her favorite afternoon snack to cheer her up!

:-)

Sandi

Houston, TX

[Formerly of Ohio, now a Texan, by way of Michigan, and California]<G>

In a message dated 4/29/2005 1:02:14 PM Central Standard Time,

ds2400@... writes:

My daughter, , is 9 years old, HFA. She is very verbal but

alot of what she says is scripted, in other words, she has alot of

receptive language but not expressive. Shes always been prone to

mild self injury in the form of repetitive back banging in her bed

against the headboard which calms her down. As she gets older, I am

seeing her engaging in more self injurious behaviors because she

can't/won't use the words to express herself. She will get very

angry with me (she's starting the hormone rollercoaster of puberty)

and instead of hitting or biting me, she'll bite HER arm or pull HER

own hair. I'll give her the words she needs such as " you're very

angry at Mommy now. Tell me, use your words... " She'll furiously

say, " no, I don't want to " and continue to hurt herself. I'll tell

her that what she's really wanting to do is hit ME or bite ME, and

she seems to get mad when I explain to her what I feel she must be

going through.

The other day in school, she came home and had scribbled all over

her new pants and jacket with a permanent marker because she was mad

at SOMEONE ELSE in school who told her to be quiet. Once again, she

was destructive to herself, not the person she was mad at.

Does this sound familiar to any of you? I'm at my wits end.

Also, I notice that she does really well in school all year and then

seems to fall apart right at the end of the school year and get bad

reports at school and cry about going. You would think this would

happen at the beginning of the year. I don't know if its because

school gets less structured as teachers slack off on work at the end

of the year and they have more field trips, field days, etc., of

unstructured time. She hates school anyway, so it's not because

shes going to miss school that she starts getting bad reports. Does

anyone elses child get like this at the end of the school year? What

do you do?

Thanks

Diane