baby hurts himself when he gets mad

[savyjoel]

My son is almost 13mo. I'd say for the last 2 months or so when he is told no or moved away from something he shouldn't be doing etc... he will cry and hit his head on the floor or hit himself on the face. He doesn't do this every time but he does it fairly often. We have hard wood floors and if I can't get to him quickly then he will have red marks on his head. It really concerns me. I don't want him to hurt himself. I know he's just expressing his frustration but he's so young to express it this way. Maybe I'm wrong. Do any of you have babies that do this? How do you handle it? Does it get worse? My daughter who is 10 will get angry and do things to hurt herself sometime like hitting her head, scratching her face or saying things like she wish she was dead. Again she only does that when she gets really mad at me. I figure she's just trying to hurt me. Well I'm sure I'm not alone. If you can offer any suggestions I'd be glad to listen. Thanks

[quantumleap]

My kiddo does that too, sometimes. She doesn't bang her head in to the floor, she bites at it and so smashes her lips/mouth in to the wood floor. She only does this when she's *both* really overtired and really frustrated. If I can head off the overtiredness, or the situations that lead to frustration for her, she typically doesn't bang her face in to the ground. I really think it's an odd reaction, in a way, although I guess the logical part of me can see the reasoning behind it.
I have no idea if it gets worse. DD seems to be doing it less and less these days, but I don't know if that's because she's getting better at dealing with things, or if *I* am, or if its a combination of both.
I do work pretty hard on this one. I don't know if habits you develop as a young toddler continue on indefinitely, but I really don't want her frustration reaction to be a self-harm one.
Has your older child always done the scratching/hurting herself when she gets angry? Maybe your little is mimicking?