Child recreates accidents

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Have any other parents seen this behavior on their child on the spectrum - Anytime our son hurts himself in an accident, he'll recreate the accident (carefully.) For instance, if he falls down the stairs, he'll climb back up them and play out falling back down the stairs again. If he falls off something and bumps his head, he'll jump off of it and bump his head (gently) against what he hit.

He's nonverbal, so I actually appreciate it because it helps me understand what he did if I hear him crying.

My hyperverbal Aspie does something similar with social situations - if he thinks something was wrong, he will repeat his side of the conversation to me, expecting me to respond like the original person he had the interaction with. He may go over it with me very carefully several times; we'll talk about things like tone of voice, etc.

My son does this too. He did it before he was verbal and still does it now that he is verbal. At first I thought it was more of a processing thing, but now I think he is trying to understand what happened, more root cause analysis. Also he is a sensory seeker, so sometimes he seems to like the pressure, but not the pain part of it. However, I can tell when that is the case because he is laughing when he recreates and usually escalates the energy in the fall/bump.

Thank you for this phrase! Yes.

Yes, I do this too. Still to this day. He's trying to figure out what happened. I might be assuming too much, but with me it's what went wrong, why and how, and what do I need to do to make it go right eventually.

I have a hard time sequencing it all in my head. It works better if I can watch it unfold again (and again and again and again) and sooner or later I will spot what I need to do differently.

Sam here. He repeats when he has been struck by some situations.

For instance, last year a schoolmate fell on the ground out of school why they were running together and he repeated the same scene for weeks later on.

Same with my 5 yo.

Accidentally bangs his head on the wall, screams because it hurts, then goes back to the wall and bangs his head against it, screams again. My better half and I had real trouble dealing with this initially. It's hard to tell if the reenactment actually hurts him or not. Self-injury really freaks me out. Once someone told me "today on the motorway I tried to have an accident but in the end I couldn't do it". I just sat there silently acknowledging that I'd heard him but couldn't say anything kind or helpful, just couldn't deal with it at all. If any of my kids ever self-harm I'll need to rewire my whole brain from the ground up, or go coocoo I guess.
To calm myself down I would imagine my son saying: "Hey you stupid wall, think you can hit my head? Well guess what motherf****, my head is gonna hit you! Take this you bastard!" Yeah well I'm just an immature man, but there you have it. I guess it's better to have a sore head and a sane-ish father than a sore head and a sad, freaked-out father.

I really hope the "root cause analysis" thing applies to my son.

Another thing he used to do is intentionally fall onto his knees from a standing position. Didn't look very comfortable at all. Now with hindsight I guess he may have been re-enacting something?

Some children with ASD also have a diminished sense of pain.

I don't think you should allow your son to purposely hit his head on the wall. It doesn't sound like you're doing anything to discourage or redirect him? I realize you want to honor your family's neurodiversity (I believe in this concept, as well) but you have to draw a line somewhere.

Tried, with mixed success. Talked to him, hugged him, brought favorite toys... When nothing else worked I've sometimes resorted to physically restraining him, but it seems to me that the emotional pain he gets from this is worse than head on the wall. Also, sometimes there's just too much other stuff going on with the siblings to attend to him.

I'd be grateful for suggestions re. other things to try.

Never seen any bumps on his head afterwards btw (those times that I checked) - so maybe it's not that bad after all? Really hard for me to tell.

I sometimes put my hand between my son's head and the wall, (or between his hands and his head if that's what he's doing) or if I have something soft handy (like a blanket) I'll use that. DS can be stopped once you give him a moment, though - but restraining him doesn't work, either.

Yes this also works for me sometimes. On some occasions though he was hitting hard it enough to hurt me, not really bad but still I removed my hand because I thought letting him hurt me would be giving a bad example (also for the siblings).

Right this is headbanging thing is not happening anymore, and for other problematic behaviors "biiiig hug" seems to be the magic remedy for most of them. I just need to remember to offer it, early enough, and give him some time to accept it. Things are looking up
Thanks everybody!

My son used to throw himself on the floor, either from a standing position or from his desk at school. It was sensory seeking behavior. Deficits in proprioception. He had difficulty "finding" his body in space, but crashing against something or throwing himself to the floor helped him self regulate. If he didn't get proprioceptive input, he would get increasingly uncomfortable.

He was very verbal about this (he did it up to the age of 7 or so). He told me "Mommy, I know I am not supposed to do it. I know I will get in trouble if I do it, but I have to do it anyway. I don't want to do something wrong, but I have to do it."