As Evan gets older his behavior sometimes perplexes me. There have been several times that he's done something that catches me so off guard or comes out of the blue that I just stop and stare at him and wonder if he is from this planet. His latest odd behavior happens any time that he gets mad. He will find the nearest hard object, whether it be the tile floor, a wall, or my knee (yay me!) and start banging his head on it. And when I say banging, I'm not talking about light little taps I mean the kind that leaves little red circles on his head and sometimes light bruises. This is especially fun when we have to go out in public and people ask what happened to his head. How do you explain that your child has anger management issues and likes to inflict pain on himself without seeming like you've spawned a devil baby??
When he first did this I thought maybe it was on accident or he was just so frustrated he didn't know what to do. But after the 10th time I started to worry that something was really wrong with him. I mean who does that!?!? So, yesterday I took Evan in for his 15 month check up and decided to bring it up to his doctor to get her input. Much to my relief she said it was very normal for toddlers to do this and not to worry (easier said than done). She explained that Evan is realizing every day his independence and that he has a choice on what he can do, which doesn't always align with what John and I want him to do. Since his vocabulary only consists of a few words the only other way he knows how to communicate is through his actions. The doctor then asked if he gets a reaction out of me when he does start banging his head, which I replied yes to. I mean, I don't want him to knock himself out or do something even more serious like give himself brain damage. The doctor suggested that I ignore that behavior next time because all I'm doing is reinforcing negative behavior by giving him the attention he wants. She explained that after he sees that nothing will come out him acting that way and after he hits his head hard enough he'll stop doing it.
At that very moment a light went off in my head, and I felt stupid. Why didn't I think of this? And what else am I doing that is reinforcing bad behavior? Geesh, this parenting thing can be hard!!
As if Evan understood what the doctor told me, that night he decided to test me. I took him upstairs to give him his bath before bed like we do every night. However, he decided he didn't want to go to bed and wanted to still play, which brought on a monumental temper tantrum. As expected, he started banging his head on the bathroom tile all while crying at the top of his lungs. Normally I would have picked him up and tried to comfort him but Dr. Smart's words were ringing in my ears so I walked out of the bathroom and into the game room. As you can imagine that only made him more mad so he walked into the game room and threw himself on the floor and started banging his head again. So, I walked into his bedroom and didn't even make eye contact. This happened two more times before he decided to give up and just sit there and cry. Once he calmed down a little I got down on the floor next to him and explained that it was bath time and he could play tomorrow. What a difference that made! He calmed down and even crawled in my lap for a hug! To that I thought, maybe this parenting thing isn't that hard after all (I kid, I kid!)
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