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Articles for Moms
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| Nail Biting : Exploring the Habit & Giving Your Kids Tools that Work - Part 1 by: Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht. Millions of kids put themselves at great health risk each day by putting their fingers in their mouth & biting their nails. This nasty & potentially dangerous habit can be stopped without emotional distress to the child. Parents need to know more about this, as well as to know how they can help their child. Ian McCarthy is 8 years old & spends a good part of the day eating. Today he ate minute particles of lead, sufficient enough to cause at least minimal brain damage & if continued could result in hyperactivity & reduced intellectual functioning. He also ate pinworm eggs, parasites & other potential diarrhea-causing organisms, many that can live for years in his intestinal tract. He also ingested a variety of virus, some related to measles & other contagious diseases, some of which can put his body in serious jeopardy. Pediatricians, teachers, psychologists & other health care professionals receive many questions from parents about nail biting & want to know how to help their children break this potentially dangerous habit. They are concerned about health issues & infection, as well as why their child has developed this habit & how it effects the emotional health & well-being. They also question the dangers of interfering with the habit & wonder if just ignoring the problem is the best & safest answer. Often times the child will express a wish to stop, especially as he or she grows older & appearances become more important. While there are no single or simple answers to the mystery of nail biting, information & knowledge gleaned by the parent & shared with the child can be an antidote for the worry & concern & can very well become the motivating force in helping to curtail the habit. This is not a hopeless & helpless situation at all & that alone is reassuring. Ian McCarthy is not alone. There is a very high incidence of nail biters throughout the world. 50% of people have bitten their nails at one time or another, or still do. Adults who are active biters fall into the range of 20-25%,the majority having started their habit in childhood. If a parent was a biter, this percentage increases as the child role-models both positive & negative parental behaviors. An interesting observation about nail biting is that everyone seems to know about it, but few seem to know much about it. The correct word for this self-destructive behavior is onychophagia & cuticle picking that often goes hand in hand with the habit is known an onchotillia. Aside from the actual tissue damage, the most disturbing factor in nail biting is the feeling of inadequacy derived from being unable to control oneself. When the habit goes on for years, or to any severer extent, it leaves the individual with a feeling of poor self-esteem & a perceived unstable personality that can be detrimental to other spheres of life as the child grows & matures. Adding to this despair is the physical harm that often develops. At times both the fingers & nails become disfigured for life & other conditions such as discoloration,infection, separation & thickening of the nails can occur. A common complaint is paronychia, which is a swelling & inflammation around the tissue of the nail, often containing pus, which often needs surgical intervention. Another common condition, onycholysis, which is the separation of the nail from the nail bed can also occur. Besides the risk of tissue damage, when fingers enter the mouth so does everything on them, including the dirt. If the child is in day care or pre-school, many children are handling the same toys & so the germs are passed around like a communal dinner feast. What's mine is yours takes on new meaning. A nail biting child is more directly exposed to colds, sore throats & other childhood illnesses, as well as pinworm & other parasitic visitors. Children who put their fingers in their mouth are also at risk for lead poisoning. Recent studies point to the increased danger of this, especially in city children who are exposed to the small lead particles from car exhaust that settles in the dust. Even small amounts of lead when ingested can cause minimal brain damage with resulting hyperactivity & reduced intellectual functioning. Self-Etching Habits into the Mind... Nail biting is a compulsive behavior that is mind-etched into a habit. Most biters are often unaware that they are involved in the habit. This is called auto-pilot behavior. Many biters & pickers do not wake up until they inflict a good amount of pain. It's quite amazing how much pain needs to be inflicted before one stops, making this quite different from other pain-causing activities such as pinching oneself. In addition, most nail biters are adept at positioning their hands during the act, so that no one, including themselves notices what is happening. Biters seem to know how to hide their hands in public & once again, this can take on auto-pilot mind programming. Nail Biting Triggers Triggers can be as different as the children, but there are some common threads. Ongoing high level stress, loneliness, boredom, television viewing, sadness, pain & the need to stress-release may lead children to engage in both pre-nail biting & full nail biting behaviors. Notice that nail biting can be both a stressor & a stress-releaser. Pre-nail biting behaviors can include touching or rubbing the nails or cuticles, perhaps peeling them, overinspection of the nails, looking for little hangnails & then the final act of slipping the fingers into the mouth. Once a child learns nail biting as an automatic response to certain situations, the accustomed routine or habit becomes difficult to relinquish unless certain tools, such as interactive self-hypnosis are employed. For instance, if a child practices pre-nail biting & full nail biting behaviors as he watches television, should he try to engage in that activity without the nail biting, he will have the uncomfortable feeling that something is missing. This feeling is similar to the grief that is felt when someone leaves or dies. There is a true missing, a longing, a desire to be reunited with the nail biting. This feeling can be intensely uncomfortable for the child. Once the fingers go back into the mouth, the feeling disappears & the child feels comforted once again. The child doesn't necessarily want to bite his nails, but he needs to. The habit, plus the intense feeling of discomfort is what keeps the habit alive. Emotional VS Habit Although most children bite their nails out of habit, they are certainly not exempt from emotional difficulties. It is fair to say that when fingers are in the mouth, the child isn't verbally communicating his feelings & parents need to be aware of any possible emotional distress that might need addressing or professional intervention. The child may learn a pattern of avoiding confrontation by slipping away into a self-induced hypnotic trance & then biting his nails for comfort. He is missing out on learning how to share & manage his feelings & this can become an additional habit that can lead to a deterioration in emotional health in childhood & then be carried over to adulthood. Nail biting is not a socially accepted behavior & children quickly learn when & where it can be done without drawing attention. The process of biting or picking becomes secretive, but unlike other habits, the evidence remains & is often a source of embarrassment, social humiliation, leading to low self-esteem. The child is in a Catch-22, as his self respect is on the line. But, the pain involved in stopping is simply too much to handle & failure is often re-etched over & over again. This is compounded by the fact that the child is simply not aware of what he is doing & this increases his stress & feelings of being out of control. The second part of this article will open up new vistas for the child, as well as for the parent. These vistas include the nutritional connection to compulsions, building high level awareness while releasing stress & interactive self-hypnosis imagery that teaches the child to enter his own successful imagery & actively practice building good relationships with his fingers. Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN is a Clinical Medical Hypnotist, President & Program Designer, Sarasota Medical & Sports Hypnosis Institute located in Sarasota, FL & online at www.hypnosis-audio.com & www.sugar-addiction.com. She specializes in teaching self-hypnosis for health, disease management, habit control, self-improvement & sports enhancement. Her sites are interactive & educational, offering +350 CD programs for adults, kids, executives & athletes. She is the author of "Sugar...The Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Get Free". |
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