for me i had none that were healthy. All i did was build walls around myself and try not to let anyone in. unfortunately those skills didn't let me out.

I think the best coping skills for kids is to make them feel they can talk about whatever is bothering them.

my coping skills did turn me into a survior and tauaght me to be self reliant. not bad skills but pretty narrow in the scope of things.

As a child? Hallucinated and "left my body" a lot. To get attention I hit myself in the face and cut my face. Needless to say these were NOT healthy and didn't do shit to help.

I also kind of left my body while it was actually happening, if that makes any sense. I dealt with it by making myself forget about it.

i drifted off into my own little world, and i would stay there for most of my day.

I was somewhat hyper vigilent. I always expected for something to happen and didn.t feel safe with any one

I developed an eating disorder - it made me feel in control . I also skipped school and started stealing. Also I was having bad headaches aswell - which the doctors put down to "exam stress" - yeh at 14??

i started using heroin when i was in grade seven i would go to parties and pass out behind an old abandoned apartment building i was just a waster from grade five basically on to grade eight and the summer of grade eight i stopped taking heroin but i continued through grade nine to take oxy and morphine and my mom's old friend came back in town and she gave me waht she said was oxy in a syringe but it was heroin and i had to go through detox again after that and this summer i stopped taking every thing i previously took and focused just on my pain management regime (oxycontin and neurontin) and that's about it i don't rly cope well anymore i'm in 4-south which is a psych ward and i'm doing day treatment and ACT and hopefully it will get better

I wasn't an attention seeker but I emotionally shutdown to protect myself. It wasn't okay to have feelings in my family of origin. It wasn't okay to talk about anything going on with you, so I learned to be a quiet obedient, shy, kid. It makes me sad thinking about it, all those years of utter loneliness. I much rather be where I am today. I have a voice.

coping skills we didn't have those, we had running and hiding skills, we are learning or have learned to cope with things now. You my friend have options open to you that we did not, and I beg you to take advantage of those options. Learn from those around you that can help you through it. Learn positive skills. Remember this is nothing that you caused, therefore you are not at fault. Learn to be proud of who you are, and help the next person.
Hugs & lots of positive thoughts for you.
Lovingheart

again my daughter was abused not me. She gets very angry very easily. We are working on that. If she gets in trouble in school she holds everything in until she gets home. Then she takes it out on us. Usually after some arguing and maybe throwing things at us I can calm her down enough to talk. Sometimes I think she has to blowup to calm down.

As a child I had a toy bunny rabbit called Floppy (on account of his ears being so long and floppy). He was my confidante so I could unload stuff...in my mind he understood.

As for protecting myself? Tried to do as I was told and quickly but it wasn't really worth it cos no matter what I did I copped a beating anyway.

Attention was not something I wanted cos attention meant my dad was abusing me or my mom was bashing me....was better to stay out of mind out of sight.