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As a parent, you wear many hats, including the role of teaching your children about cleanliness, hygiene, and good manners. This encompasses discouraging habits like nose-picking, wearing dirty socks, and nail-biting. Unfortunately, breaking these habits is often more challenging than it appears, especially when they’ve become ingrained behaviors. To help your child stop nail-biting, it’s essential to understand the underlying reasons driving this behavior. Many kids engage in nail-biting, but their motivations can vary. Some do it to eliminate bothersome burrs, while others resort to it as a coping mechanism for stress, and some simply do it out of boredom. Traditional methods such as making remarks, issuing punishments, or delivering countless lectures on the dangers of this habit often prove ineffective. So, what strategies can you employ to help your children kick the nail-biting habit once and for all? Keep reading to find out!
Why Do Kids Bite Their Nails?
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One thing to keep in mind when you are frustrated by your child’s bad nail biting habit is that they aren’t doing it on purpose. This behavior is habitual which means that a child repeats a certain action without realizing it. Maybe this is their way of self soothing or keeping themselves preoccupied. Or maybe they just want to get rid of an annoying broken nail. However, just because this behavior isn’t deliberate doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. Burrs and sores can appear on their fingers resulting in infections and infectious diseases. Chips and cracks may form on your little one’s teeth causing their enamel to gradually wear away and ingrown nails can form on their hands.
The initial step when you catch your child biting their nails is to engage in a calm conversation. Discuss how you both can work together to overcome this habit. It’s crucial to remember that your child might not have complete control over this behavior and may already feel guilty about it. Instead of scolding them, focus on encouraging them to stop and finding a solution collaboratively. Opting for a constructive approach is more effective than resorting to punishment for their actions.
1. Monitor Their Nails
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The first solution is easy enough. Your child can’t bite their nails if they don’t have any. The best way to prevent your child from biting on overgrown nails is to keep a close eye on their nails and trim them regularly. Make sure they are short and even and that there are no burrs around them. Make sure you take care of their cuticles and the skin on their hands. You don’t need to examine them like an ant under a microscope. You can make this activity fun instead. Set aside one day of the week so that you and your little one can enjoy a manicure together. And then you can teach them how to properly wash their hands and take care of them on their own.
2. Keep Your Child Busy
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If your child’s nail-biting habit is linked to their anxiety, then this solution might be the most effective. To divert their attention from nail biting, offer them alternative activities. You can provide them with stress-relief tools like squishy toys, stretchy or sticky slime, or a colorful pop-it fidget, featuring buttons that can be pushed in and out. Some individuals find comfort in fidgeting, and that’s perfectly fine. Give them a bracelet or ring they can twirl or play with when they feel anxious. This will help them stay calm while keeping their fingers away from their mouths.
3. Locate The Main Reason Of Stress And Eliminate It
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If your child is starting to bite their nails regularly because of something particularly stressful in their lives, it’s time to go straight to the source. Maybe they are moving schools, or their parents are getting divorced. Maybe they are having a hard time making friends or are scared of being punished for making silly mistakes. Whatever the reason may be, it’s best to get to the source of their stress and try to alleviate some of the pressure on them so that they stop biting their nails because of it.
Getting rid of a bad habit is never easy, no matter how old you are. But some of these bad habits need to be addressed and reversed while your child is still young and susceptible to chance. Changing this involuntary behavior might take time but keep at it and you will succeed.
