Any tips on how I can stop my threenager from trying to hurt himself when I say “no” or upset. It’s so manipulative & it’s getting out of hand!

So it’s been this thing now since he was abt 2 & half bt I thot it was jus the terrible 2s bt it’s hasn’t stopped! my son will deliberately hurt himself when he senses that we are “upset” with him or when I tell him no. He ends up getting upset and then his favorite thing to do is to bang his fore head on the wall cuz he knows I’ll go from being upset to being concerned! And honestly it does concern me! I clearly am failing & don’t know how to discipline him without it back firing in my face! I used to think it was just simple toddler tantrums bt I’ve tried doing timeouts or counting down & even gentle parenting & nothing is working! And I feel guilty constantly changing the way I’m parenting cuz I think consistency is key at his age! Bt I’m just literally afraid that he doesn’t know his own strength and just how much he can hurt himself. I give my son so much attention and it’s often positive so it’s very rare that he sees me upset which I think causes negative feelings within him bt I can’t have him purposefully hurting himself everytime he gets upset with me cuz he thinks I’m upset with him lol

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Kids are smart. He learned that escalating gets him what he wants. I would ignore it if it was my kiddo.

My step son does this, he’s 5. According to science It provides some (temporary) relief from the intensity of the emotions they're experiencing. They'd rather hurt themselves than take these feelings out on others. They feel they need to punish themselves, because they've been “bad," or because they don't see themselves as “good” or “worthy.” The fact he doesn’t see anger a lot from you is a lovely thing so don’t be hard on yourself. It’s all about teaching and learning at these moments. I find a calm talking session about what we’re feeling and why we want to do that helps him not too. Usually a big hug holding his arms and to explain what’s happened. I always remember as a child being told you will understand when you’re older and it never sat right with me so I explain everything in as much detail as I can and that it’s not his fault and we do things to keep him safe x

At his age he is way too young to manipulate you. Kids at that age do not have a cognitive level to understand manipulation. I will say I agree with the above comment about self punishment. I myself am autistic and I do that unfortunately especially during autistic meltdowns. My mom used to think I was being manipulative but i wasn’t I was just hurting internally real bad.

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