9 yr old hitting himself for fun

You haven't actually been around a lot of nine-year old boys, have you?

They do this sort of thing all the time. They run into walls at
high speed and fall over. They steer their bikes into trees. They whack
themselves with any convenient object, much to the delight of their
friends - who are probably doing much the same at the moment.

And then eventually they discover girls, and stop. :-)

I have a 10 year old and his friends come over all the time. They
fight, smash things, and all that stuff. When someone comes to me and
saids so and so hit someone, it's means someone is got a nasty bruise
or some bleeding that needs attending to. So when the original poster
said her son is hitting himself, I'm assuming he'll doing some damage.
If not, then I misunderstood her concern. She really have nothing to
be concern about.

soonerj wrote:
My 9 year old step-son has just started hitting/punching himself on the
face and head, complete with fighting sounds. WHen asked why he did it
he said he likes to. I've told him to stop but I'm still catching him
doing it. Any ideas?

Is he injuring himself in doing this? If he's not injuring himself:
imaginery play is normal at 9 years old and also normal, especially for
a boy, to focus of that play around fighting. I suspect, if he was
doing it for a psychological reason (i.e. frustration, communication
problems, headaches) it would not be incorporated into play (i.e. would
not be making the 'fighting sounds').

I can see how you may be concerned about him appearing excessively
violent. I think though that as long as he isnt hurting himself or
others its not really 'violence' at all. If he does start to hurt
himself or others then you may need to re-evaluate the situation.

Good luck.