1. When my daughter was 8 she had a period of time when she slapped herself, even loud over the mouth for saying something innocent or doing thing that she never saw me angry but scared and only if she didn’t listen to me being in shock I was shouting to her; (when she broke something for example and I was telling her to get out of that area and do not enter till I clean) For me it didn’t matter what she broke or damage because she had no idea of value and she didn’t want to do it, it was just negligence or not able to pay attention as it could happen to anyone. Things are not more important than people. I didn’t understand why she started punishing herself when no one punished her physically from what I knew. I tried the empathy method and I said if you think this could be a method I will try it too but hurts! It didn’t work and I used the old joke from the time when she was saying “it wasn’t me who did that bad thing, it was Miss Piggy” I told her to invite Miss Piggy outside of her or I will slap Miss Piggy. Next time when she did it, I slapped her. I slapped her and Miss Piggy didn’t slap her anymore!
(Later I understood that she had been bullied in school.)