Thumb sucking, nail biting, curling hair around your finger… fidgeting in a chair, picking your nose, slouching or gesticulating… Most of these habits are not dangerous, but the bad news is that over time, others will laugh at the child. And if it becomes an adult habit, it can be a serious hindrance in life.
The director of a large company should not pick his nose at a meeting. The President of Georgia should hardly chew his tie even in a difficult situation…
If your child has one or two bad habits, and they are not very pronounced, this means that you have a normal child, and you are excellent parents. Of course, you will slowly wean your child from these habits, accustom them to more adequate behavior, and you can be sure: in a month, in a year or several years, all these habits will disappear from your child. Everything is good!
Another thing is when your child has a lot of bad habits, if one leaves, another one comes to replace it, and the situation somehow does not improve with age — this situation is more difficult. Diagnosis: you have neglected a child, and it is difficult to call you good parents. Your child’s bad habits are a signal that not everything is good in your family and in your child’s life, and a hint to you that you and your child need to be taken care of.
You can, of course, not do it, just worry and swear at the child — but this means that over time, your child will also have problem behavior in addition to bad habits. And sometimes — and deviant, and asocial. Now he sucks his thumb, and in 10-15 years he will suck beer. Now he drags everything into his mouth, and after some time he will drag things from home … If you don’t take care of your child and yourself, the district police officer will tell you that teenagers shouldn’t have drugs. Yes? Do you like these perspectives? So, it’s time to take care of the baby.
And the third time we emphasize: to take care of a child means to take care of yourself.
“He’s just kind of crazy with me,” the mother has been complaining for several minutes, looking angrily at the roaring baby. “He turned three that week, and he sucks his thumb like a little kid. How much I told him, how much I explained to him … He understands everything, but does it to spite me. No wonder I didn’t want to have children. Only troubles and misunderstandings.
Such a mother may complain for at least a few more hours, but her last two phrases are enough to reveal the cause of the child’s obsessive habit. He is unwanted and unloved — and this is the main trigger. Any kid intuitively feels even a veiled dislike. What if there is a clear rejection? The child feels bad, and thumb sucking naturally calms him.
Bad habits often appear where the child feels bad. Lack of affection and warmth when communicating with him, quarrels of parents, their conflicts, divorces, leaving the baby to himself. However, there are other reasons, more of a medical nature. For example, thumb sucking is more often demonstrated by children weakened by diseases, children with frequent colds, helminthic infestations, intestinal infections and neuropathy. With parental alcoholism, minimal brain failure may be a prerequisite for this habit.
Children can suck not only a finger, but also a corner of a blanket, as well as other things that fall under the arm, however, usually the same things. Simultaneously with thumb sucking, many babies also make some other obsessive movements (stroking their ears, picking their nose, sniffing, licking their lips, etc.). Very often these movements are fixed by the type of formation of conditioned reflexes. For example, a runny nose that repeats several times a year turns into the habit of “sniffing”, and often dry lips — to licking them. The older the child, the more pronounced the moment of imitation.
The habit of nail biting usually appears later, starting at 4-5 years of age. Nails «themselves» bite and «themselves» bite, children do not even know «when». And “when” is either excitement or excitement that brings anxiety. Talking, speaking, waiting, watching a movie — everything that disturbs a child can be accompanied by nail biting, especially in cases where the baby is ambitious, and mom and dad want to see him as a “wunderkind”, overloading his intellect. And this increases the nervous tension of the child, turning everything into a vicious circle. On the one hand, parents are outraged by the “bad” habit of the preschooler and demand its cessation; on the other hand, they reinforce it with their demands. Of course, this is not the case.
And what will be the case? Fighting bad habits is the same as fighting your own shadow if it seems stooped to you. It is not necessary to fight with a stooped shadow, but to straighten yourself. If you put things in order in your life and become a good parent, bad habits will disappear almost by themselves. That is the first thing to take care of. The child needs your peace of mind, goodwill, fun games together, praise and at the same time accustoming him to obey you. There are many special articles on Psychologos about this, start slowly rebuilding your life, and the child will be a sensitive indicator of how things are going for you.
However, you can suggest the simplest things for individual bad habits.
Pulling hair? Do not scare the child, “Why are you pulling your hair, you will soon remain completely bald!”, no, on the contrary, reassure: “Pulling your hair is not harmful, it just hurts you. And so, from pulling hair, blood circulation improves, children become smarter. Still, it’s better to comb your hair more often, then you’ll get smarter faster, and it’s more pleasant than pulling yourself. Try!»
If he sucks his fingers — bandaging his fingers is a bad idea, smearing them with unpleasant substances — you can try, but it also rarely helps. Creative parents can come up with some exciting role-playing game, for example, to a hairdresser, but where only children with beautiful nails and not wet fingers get manicures. There were cases when the paradoxical task helped: “Suck your fingers on purpose! I can do it with you. Five minutes of sucking — started! ”, But such a task can only help if it sounds not like a punishment, but like helping the child begin to notice this action.
Be sure to read a wonderful passage from Milton Erickson’s work, where he helped the child, inspiring him with self-confidence — and at the same time giving the instruction that he would soon stop sucking his fingers.
Bites nails — you need to help in your studies so that the child is self-confident. It is useful to cheer him up more often and inspire self-confidence. By the way, it helps to exclude exciting events for a while, such as watching exciting films and reading scary tales. There are two meanings here — the child should not be overexcited, and create a situation where nail biting turns out to be a disadvantageous habit for the child. Really, because of some nails to deprive yourself of cool movies? No, you can try!
And try this: if a child has a bad habit of biting his feet or twisting his hair around his fingers, react to this not with an unhappy or dissatisfied face, but with a cheerful demand: “Do the Sunshine! Smile!» If a child begins to smile brightly at the moment of biting his nails or pulling out his hair, it turns out that it often really helps miraculously!
Like this. Everything slowly — it will work!