Dr. Komarovsky about what to do if a child bites his nails

A child who bites his nails doesn’t look too beautiful. An adult who has had this bad habit since his childhood looks even more unsightly - and even repulsive. The chances of "re-educating" an adult are slim. So you need to take care of this in childhood. Dr. Komarovsky talks about how to wean a child to bite his nails.

About 30% of children regularly bite fingernails on their hands. In adolescence, almost half of boys and girls do this. In 25% of them, the habit persists in adulthood.

Parents often turn to pediatricians with the question of how to explain to the child all the damage to his habits. But the problem from this is not solved faster, because it goes beyond purely medical and becomes partly pedagogical, and partly psychological.

In different countries and social circles, their ideas about bad habits and norms. Definitely harmful Yevgeny Komarovsky advises to consider those actions of the child that cause him physical and other harm.

Gnawing nails is harmful:

1. Regular nibbling of the skin around the nail plate may result to thinning the skin, increased sensitivity of fingertips, to inflammatory processes in the deep skin layers. This can change the color and appearance of the nails, they look unhealthy, as well as break.
2. Children, who often bite their nails, more likely to get sick, after all, the microbes that live in the oropharynx can penetrate the bloodstream through microscopic wounds in the region of the nail plates injured by the teeth and cause quite serious illnesses.

Under the nails, there are usually a lot of not very useful microorganisms and parasites, which, when fingers are in the mouth, easily penetrate the oral cavity, from which they travel around the body, causing various diseases along the way. Hard enough nail plates when trying to gnaw them can injure the enamel of the teeth.

Regarding the reasons why children begin to bite their nails, doctors still argue. Some argue that blame stress, anxiety, depressed psychological state. Others believe that the habit is formed in children, whose mothers paid little attention to the education of hygienic skills in children.

Psychiatrists and psychologists are unanimous in the fact that most often the nail biting habit is formed in children aged 4-5 years. In more rare cases, children begin to injure their own nail plates with their teeth at 2 or 3 years.If up to 5 years old parents do not think about urgent measures, then in the early school years the bad habit will only get worse, since the student’s stress increases with each new quarter in school.

One of the most common causes of oniophagia is the personal example of parents.. If one of the adult family members bites their nails, then the baby simply starts to imitate, and then it is very difficult to convince him of the harmfulness of the habit. He sees every day that dad or mom do it, and nothing bad happens to them.

Among other likely causes of addiction, physicians and psychologists name the following factors: heredity, auto-aggression, and child’s resistance to total control by adults.

Sometimes the child’s nails due to certain metabolic pathologies exfoliate and break on their own - both on the legs and on the hands. Often, children do not find a better way than simply nibbling a broken plate.

The fact that the child is allowed once, Komarovsky says, something that the parents didn’t pay attention to, is done by the child for the second time as a completely legal action that was not prohibited. For this reason, it is desirable to adjust the actions of the child at the initial stage, while the habit has not had time to become exactly reflex.

If you bite your nails is already a persistent habit, parents need to make a serious pedagogical decision for themselves. If you fight - always and everywhere, without weekends and holidays. Parents' demands must be clearly motivated. The child should know what exactly he is doing wrong, what is fraught with for him.

At the initial stage, parents need to establish at any cost the true cause of their child’s addiction. If you don’t find it yourself, you can turn to the local pediatrician or child psychologist, but not with the question of how to eradicate the habit, but with the question of where the problem “legs grow from”.

The worst thing that can come up with parents who decided to wean their offspring from harmful addiction - is roughly pull him and beat his hands. This does not solve the problem, and the baby will soon realize that it is impossible to nibble at his parents' nails, but alone, when no one sees, it is very possible.

Miraculous drugs in the form of tablets or syrup from this scourge does not exist. Ineffective and smear nails with something bitter (mustard, pepper). Even worse, start to intimidate the child and frighten him with all sorts of horrors, because this bad habit can be replaced by another one. The child will quickly begin, for example, to bite his lips or spit.

If the reason for biting nails lies in stressful situations, the excitement of the child, you need to teach him to express his emotions differently - for example, with words. To do this, there are many psychological techniques based on games that the child will be interested in doing.

You can give your child a soothing herbal tea, make relaxing massage, it is necessary to carry out daily water procedures, walk more with him in the fresh air and minimize the time a child spends in front of a TV or monitor computer.

In parallel with the elimination of psychological discomfort, it is necessary to tackle the strengthening of the nail plates, because a strong and resistant to the effects of the nail is more difficult to nibble. To do this, after consulting with a pediatrician, it makes sense to start giving the child medications. calcium in permitted age dosages. For nails, you can make firming baths with saline solutions, with essential oils (cedar oil works well).

The child should be taught not only to relax, but also to focus attention. If you take your child into an interesting business (drawing, mosaic, modeling, or something else), he will be less likely to want to take his hands in his mouth. It is desirable that the case was exactly man-made. Fingers should be involved. If this is going to be a joint venture with adults, it is simply wonderful.

One should not think that onychophagy is an age-related phenomenon, and the grown-up tot will “outgrow it”, mature and suddenly realize how bad and ugly it is and stop biting its nails. This almost never happens.

Every night before bed, mom needs to carefully inspect the baby’s nails. In the case of wrinkles, burrs, delaminations, the defect should be carefully fixed with nail scissors and a nail file so that the child will not be tempted to bite off something on his own. This will form a new habit, useful and necessary - to care for your nails regularly.

How to wean the child to bite his nails will tell Dr. Komarovsky in the video below.