Children often have problems with chewing and sucking on their fingernails, thumbs, clothing, toys, or anything else for that matter. When they are very little, they can't help it. They are learning what things are, what is and isn't edible, and their body parts are no exception. But there comes a
point in every child's development where these nasty little habits should stop, but sometimes they don't.
Some children persist in these things way beyond their natural development. There is a lot of good advice on Minti for stopping all these little habits, but one thing has been over-looked from what I've read, so I'm just posting a short advice to bring up a possible aspect of it all that some parents may need to have a closer look at: nervousness.
When I was a child I used to suck my thumb in my sleep right up until I was 12 years old. I had a huge callous on the back of my thumb and a split in the skin where my bottom teeth would rest. During the day I'd chew on my fingernails. I still chew my fingernails sometimes. I'm also now a smoker and I have a bad habit of chewing on my tongue piercing. I do these things most when I'm nervous about something. Why?
Well, I had good reason to be nervous as a child. That reason, and a few that have added to it since, have kept me with these habits, though since I've learned better how to deal with stress, I'm not as bad for them - well, except maybe the nicotine addiction. If I was convinced to give up sucking my thumb, I took up chewing my fingernails. When I stopped that, I grinded my teeth. My habit never ceased, it just changed form. But why all the chewing and sucking?
When we are babies, we become distressed at feeling hungry or thirsty. We cry. We get a breast, bottle, or food shoved in our gob and we feel better. So as we grow we learn that feeling distressed can be settled with having something in our mouth. If a dummy comes into play, we get distressed, we get a dummy shoved in our gob. Eventually the dummy is taken away or we don't like it anymore. Hey, we have a thumb! Not allowed to suck on thumb, we have fingernails, clothes, toys, whatever.
When parents cheer a child up with food and snacks every time they are upset, it can lead to eating disorders. Get upset = eat. Obesity is the end result. But if it's a dummy, thumb sucking or fingernail chewing, we don't always notice the result because the child isn't putting on huge amounts of excess weight. Now I'm not saying that dummys lead to thumb sucking and that thumb sucking is all bad - all kids will suck their thumb at some point, dummy or not. The issue isn't what they are doing, it's why they are doing it.
If your child is a fanatical sucker or chewer at an age beyond when they should be doing it, as well as try to discourage the problem in itself, try and figure out the reason they are doing it while you're at it. Do they suck their thumb (or whatever it is they are doing) more than usual after you and your partner have had an arguement, they had a fight over a toy with their sibling, something scared them, they got into trouble, or they are generally upset about something? Pay attention to when they are more inclined to do this. If there is a pattern of increased tendancy to do it at a time that the child would logically be stressed, then you need to not only stop the child from their bad habit, but you also need to teach them how to cope with the stress. Otherwise, their bad habit will only change form and you'll forever be trying to break them out of a different habit, and they won't figure it out until, like me, they end up in therapy and are taught how to deal with stress properly.
(August 2007) (
