it hadnt occured to me before, but my daughter will hit herself when shes feeling upset or angry or anything like that. she hits herself several times in the face/head with her fist or open palm. i usually stop her, address her feelings and give her a hug, i encourage her to be verbal and not physical.
is this a mental health issue?

her dad does this sometimes when hes really distressed, but im pretty sure shes never seen him do it. hes been working hard to stop himself and doing a fantastic job of it. i was a cutter but i stopped cold turkey when i found out i was pregnant with her. is self harm hereditary?
im just now realizing i should probably be more on top of this all. her dad is clinically depressed, extremely antisocial, used to self harm, when hes stressed out he tends to become food obsessed and has anorexic tendencies(his mother was anorexic and his brother is a compulsive over eater) and i think he may even be a little sociopathic.
im a recovered agoraphobic, recovered eating disordered(my mom is a recovered bulimic and my sister is a compulsive over eater), used to cut, im manic depressive, and i dont like to admit it but i might be a little OCD...
wow we sound like quite a pair :lol anyways, how much of this stuff is hereditary? ive just been vigilant about eating disorders but now im starting to worry...
am i over reacting?

it hadnt occured to me before, but my daughter will hit herself when shes feeling upset or angry or anything like that. she hits herself several times in the face/head with her fist or open palm. i usually stop her, address her feelings and give her a hug, i encourage her to be verbal and not physical.
is this a mental health issue?

her dad does this sometimes when hes really distressed, but im pretty sure shes never seen him do it. hes been working hard to stop himself and doing a fantastic job of it. i was a cutter but i stopped cold turkey when i found out i was pregnant with her. is self harm hereditary?
im just now realizing i should probably be more on top of this all. her dad is clinically depressed, extremely antisocial, used to self harm, when hes stressed out he tends to become food obsessed and has anorexic tendencies(his mother was anorexic and his brother is a compulsive over eater) and i think he may even be a little sociopathic.
im a recovered agoraphobic, recovered eating disordered(my mom is a recovered bulimic and my sister is a compulsive over eater), used to cut, im manic depressive, and i dont like to admit it but i might be a little OCD...
wow we sound like quite a pair :lol anyways, how much of this stuff is hereditary? ive just been vigilant about eating disorders but now im starting to worry...
am i over reacting?
I think the hitting at her age is normal. I know a lot of kids who have done that and they grow out of it. However, my DD is only 7 months so I can't tell you 100% on that! :lol
As for what's hereditary....manic depressive is hereditary. So is OCD. They go hand in hand and a lot of people who are MD are also OCD. My mom is MD and has OCD tendencies as does her dad. I am VERY OCD and my brother was recently diagnosed MD. I don't about the rest of my siblings. I do know we all have OCD tendencies but to varying degrees. So yes, those are hereditary. I'm not sure about the other stuff though. I've only come in contact with a few people who have had those issues (the self cutting mainly) and they were usually add ons to something more severe. Sorry I can't be of more help! (((HUGS)))

Well, I don't know about hereditary, but my DS does the same thing. When he gets angry or frustrated he will sometimes slap himself in the head and say "ow!". Neither DH or I do this nor had he been spanked or slapped or witnesses this in our household. :shrug For a while he was head-banging (hard enough to leave bruises), now this seems to be replacing it. I just hope he will outgrow it soon.
:hug

I have experience with this. I did the same as a child. I vividly remember hitting myself on the head with my hairbrush handle and giving myself knots. I did so often, and it came from frustration. I still hit myself (mostly in the head, and with my own hands/fists) when I am very frustrated. It tends to come when I'm in a rage (and sometimes disassociate). The feeling sometimes comes from frustration now, but mostly it comes from feeling intense self hatred.
My father did that once in front of me, but it was after I'd been doing it for years. My feeling is that it probably isn't hereditary. It's a learned way of coping with overwhelming feelings. So while your child may not see someone hitting him or herself, the way that person reacts to anger, frustration, etc., is what your child learns. If she learns an unhealthy method, it may exhibit itself in the hitting.
Then again, a friend's daughter is only 2 and she sometimes bites herself when she's angry, frustrated, or being defiant. She is not around that behavior, nor do her parents engage in that behavior away from her (that I know of). I think that's a function of being a child who is learning to negotiate intense feelings.
I don't know if it's officially self injury.

is this a mental health issue? Are you qualified to make that assessment?
It might help dh to know that if he's ever done anything similar he has to stop. But since she is self harming in the face of 'stress' then I would get her assessed, before she learns to hide it, go off and do it out of sight.
Hurting yourself is not that healthy of an expression of frustration.
She needs to have another way to channel, possibly play therapy would help?
but honestly my gut reaction is she has seen her father do it, we all do things like pick our nose, scratch our crotch when our kids are around, that we might not do if we thought adults were looking. Or possibly heard you discuss it. As well I have seen it as a reaction when children are spanked, that a child will just slap themselves when they feel bad.
Utlimately though I think you need some outside help in determining. My eldest was a selfharmer headbanging, bite till you draw blood from an infant. I know head banging is normal in small children but we are talking until she bled, seeking out harder surfaces like concrete in which to more bounce her head off not 'bang'. She'd bite herself so hard she'd break her own skin.. and we are talking daily....thank god most of that has past but I still often worry about her becomming a cutter etc later on.