What Should You Do About Head Banging?

Discussion Head banging and body rocking are common habits that young children exhibit that can be worrisome or frustrating for parents but that do not cause harm to the child. In a normally developing child they occur around 6-9 months age, and generally resolve around 2-3 years with most behaviors gone by 6-8 years. Children usually do not cause harm to themselves, but it can cause furniture to move causing noise, or potentially the child could lose balance and fall off a bed, or strike an object unintentionally and hurt themself (hit edge of a bed just right in a way that causes a small bruise). The behaviors appear to be a self-soothing behavior, that helps the child to get to sleep or to calm-down in some way. The behaviors commonly occur while going to sleep and may reoccur at night if the child awakens and then is trying to return to sleep. With body rocking the child often will be in a curled up position and may rock so vigorously that the bed shakes and even hits the room walls. Other child may just sit up and rock front-to-back or side-to-side. While the above are normal habits, other repetitive movements can signal problems. Movement disorders can be divided into two major categories: Dyskinesias or hyperkinetic movement disorders, which are repetitive abnormal involuntary movements which includes chorea, dystonia, myoclonus, tremors, tics and stereotypies. Akinetic/rigid disorders or hypokinetic movement disorders which are relatively uncommon in children. The ...
Source: PediatricEducation.org - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news