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[quote=Anonymous]I have a 6 year old son who is on the sensitive side and has trouble expressing himself and his emotions.  Ever since he turned 6, he has become unbearable.  Extreme whining, crying, screaming over the littlest things.  I usually ignore and let him do his thing but he has recently started hitting or pinching himself, seemingly in frustration or anger.  When I ask him why he does it, he says he's bad or because I'm mad at him, or because it feels good.  Just to be clear, this doesn't result from me screaming at him.  I could just be asking him to finish his food or whatever or express disappointment or frustration with him doing something wrong, and off he goes hitting himself.  I feel like I am walking on eggshells and it also just infuriates me.  I feel like I can't talk to him, can't so much as look at him wrong.

I don't know whether this is normal and how I should react.  My reactions have not been great.  My natural reaction when he starts hitting himself is extreme anger.  I'm not sure where that anger comes from but it consumes me sometimes.  Maybe it is that I feel he is manipulating me, or maybe I find his behavior (and the behavior of anyone who hurts themselves) just so pathetic and disgusting.  So I have screamed at him.  I have also tried ignoring the behavior.  And also tried talking to him calmly about why he shouldn't do that and to use calming techniques or use his words to express his frustrations.  None of the above seem to make any difference. To make matters worse, his younger sibling has started to pickup on the self hitting and will start doing that too when they are frustrated (though of course half heartedly at this point).

Please help!  how do I make it stop?  It is killing me and sometimes I just cannot stand being around him. [/quote]

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