Self Injury

[Guest guest]

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