When J was four years old he started to hurt me.
Not just the odd push and shove, but rather violent hitting, biting and throwing objects at me.
He would come into our room in the night, armed with books, DVD cases etc and throw them at my head.
This was just the start of it though.
He progressed to biting me so hard he would draw blood.
We were referred to a psychologist who would visit my house once a week.
This phsyc was a student, and so he was always armed with reference books and was keen to learn.
The advice he gave, and which was backed up by the lead psych, was for me, and others around me watching this behaviour, to just ignore it. Not make a comment to J, not say "ow", nothing.
This I did.
But, it was flipping painful.
One time, we were at my aunts house, where her friend was visiting along with her two young children.
I was happily chatting away to them, when J approached and grabbed my left hand.
I continued to chat away to them, after saying "hello" to J.
He then took my hand and chomped down hard onto the back of it, where the veins stick out.
My aunt and her friend looked on in horror, but I managed to say, through strained teeth, to just ignore him and to continue to chat to me.
When he had finished his feast, he let go, and wandered off.
I looked down to see blood trickling from a huge bite mark.
This was one of the worst incidents of his aggression towards me, and thankfully, after around 8 weeks, it petered out.
Last year, he took to head banging.
He would head bang walls and door frames, the inside of the car window,the floor ( we have wooden floors) and the stair banister.
It got so bad that he made his forehead become an open wound, which would scab up overnight then be re-opened the next day with fresh banging.
He enjoyed doing it. Especially when the scab would open and bleed. He decorated his bedroom wall with his blood, making patterns which he would stand back and admire.
I again was told to ignore this behaviour as it would be rewarding him if I did.
I would watch him, through the crack in a door, and see him sitting happily, perhaps drawing on his magnetic drawer, or watching Bear in the Big Blue House, and suddenly he would jump up and run towards the wall, crack his head, laugh, and sit back down. A lot of the time he would head bang every few seconds over a period of five minutes.
At his Christmas Nativity play at his school he was an Angel. However, resplendent in a white gown, halo atop his head, he looked a rather bashed up Angel with a huge scab on his forehead.
This head banging ceased around the New Year thankfully.
But, over these last few days it has started up again. Every so often I will hear a bang and look to see him standing by a wall with a huge grin on his face.
Only twice did he bang so hard that it made him cry.
He repeated this behaviour at school as well. I had mentioned it and was told that he had not displayed it. I was sceptical however.
After I had taken him to see our GP to report what he was doing to himself ( and also so that it was recorded down in case I was accused of child battery) the school suddenly said that yes in fact he was doing this. One incident was at a computer table, where he was working happily away with the teacher, when out of nowhere, J smashed his head down onto the desk. He then continued to work on the computer, much to the teachers shock.
Another less injurious behaviour he does, which is sporadic but intense at the time he is doing it, is hitting his legs.
He will roll up his trousers to reveal bare calves, and then whack them really hard with his hand.
Again, he appears to be really enjoying himself.
My Grandma, who is no longer with us, once told me that all children go through phases of annoying,destructive, or unpleasant behaviours, and that they last around six weeks before they move onto something else, so it will not last forever. For the majority of J's behaviours this is the case thankfully (like when he would wake in the night and go round the house turning on all the lights - I resolved this by switching the fuse box switch off for all the lights at night, which angered J, but stopped this light switching at night in its tracks).
My worry about the future and J's self harm is that he finds the stimulus from more dangerous objects and will be risking his life or causing permanent damage to his brain or body.
I must say that if a pysch tells me to ignore dangerous behaviours, they will be asked to leave as we will need a more constructive approach and not a swift and easy brush off.
I can only keep my fingers crossed that this route is not one J will take.
