Bad habits do not come into being with a person. They are acquired in the development process, as well as useful skills. Therefore, it is not surprising that sometimes a child learns not only good, but also acquires habits such as nail biting.
If a child bites his nails, how to wean him?
Previously, parents
punished children for such a habit
. Many books describe the process of how, with the best of intentions, parents scolded their child or used harsh methods - smeared their fingertips with iodine, mustard or other bitter substances. When a child
bites his nails, treatment with such methods was considered justified, because the consequences of such a habit are not very good:
- firstly, in itself it is unaesthetic. A child can adapt worse in society because of it, because children are cruel, they can make fun of even such a trifle as ugly fingertips;
- secondly, the nails themselves from such exposure are destroyed, become brittle and brittle, subsequently grow poorly and have an ugly shape of the nail hole. It can be very tragic at a young age for a girl or boy;
- thirdly, all kinds of bacteria, worm eggs, E. coli and other microbes harmful to the body accumulate under the nails, which, when nibbled, enter the intestines of the child.
All these arguments convince us as responsible parents that it is time to take some measures and think: if a child bites his nails, how to wean him? To get an answer to this question, you should understand the very mechanism of this habit in your baby.
All psychologists agree in the same opinion - if a child 3 years old bites his nails, it means that he is in a state of stress. The latter may have external and internal causes. Before asking questions about what are the consequences of a child biting his nails, how to wean him, you should understand the causes of such a habit. Perhaps you sharply answered the baby's question, scolded him for something too strictly, or simply did not pay attention to him, and he decided that in this way you punished him for disobedience. To distract from these experiences and relieve tension, the child pulls a fist into his mouth and bites his nails. The internal causes of this phenomenon are also tied to punishment - perhaps your child himself is punishing himself for the misconduct that he allegedly committed. Perhaps he has problems communicating with other children, and he blames himself. Then the baby punishes himself - biting his nails to hurt himself.
What to do if your child bites his nails, how to wean him? In no case do not scold. Do not punish him for a bad habit. Better calmly explain why this is not worth it. Show how to properly care for your hands so that your nails are beautiful, and offer to do it together. In addition, offer him, if there is a desire to bite his nails, to remove this tension in other ways, for example, by clenching and unclenching the fists. You can try to draw together the reasons why the baby wants to bite his nails. And in the future to offer him, as soon as the hand reaches to his mouth, immediately draw what he is experiencing at the moment. Such therapy can help parents understand their child’s fears, and the baby can relieve stress in such a harmless way. And to prevent such a habit, never refuse a child in a friendly and full-fledged communication with you.