How To Prevent Children From Biting Their Nails
How to prevent children from biting their nails? This question will certainly interest many parents. Nail biting (better known as nail biting) is common in childhood.
There are many occasions when parents believe their children are doing it to get attention, but in reality this is not the case. Most of the time, children unconsciously bite their nails. There is no point in scolding them and even punishing them if they continue to do so. Below we present a series of ideas to prevent children from biting their nails.
How to prevent children from biting their nails?
Use dialogue
Dialogue with your children is the first way to prevent them from biting their nails. As we have already said, when you see your children putting their hands in their mouths, there is no point in berating them in an angry way or using threats.
By doing so, they will become even more agitated; we must be aware that, in most cases, nail biting is synonymous with stress or nervousness for some reason related to the surrounding environment or to the child’s personality.
In light of this, in a quiet, peaceful and calm way, you have to ask them what is happening at that moment or how their day has been to understand if there is something that worries them or worries them. Nail biting is usually due to three main causes that we see below.
Anxiety
If the child bites his nails for this reason, dialogue with him will be essential. You need to know what is bothering him and try to solve his problem.
Association
On several occasions, the habit of biting nails is associated with a specific activity performed by the child, usually by distraction. Watching television is one of the most common. In this case, we need to keep an eye on the times when he bites his nails and explain to him the reasons why this association is not good.
Imitation
It is well known that children imitate everything they see around them. Below we explain how to prevent children from biting their nails if they do it by imitation.
How to prevent children from biting their nails by imitation
The mirror in which they look at each other
While nail biting is more common in children than in adults, there is a high percentage of people who continue to do so during the adult stage.
If you fall into this group, you must be aware of two aspects. First, children copy everything they see around them, even more their parents. If the little ones see you biting your nails, chances are they will end up biting your nails too. Following this, the first step you must take is to avoid eating them in front of them.
Secondly, and for the child to eliminate this behavior, you will have to stop doing it too. To do this, offer them a game in which whenever one of the two sees the other perform this action, you will make a complicit gesture to avoid it when there are other people in front of you.
In this way, the children will feel responsible for their actions and will have greater complicity with you. Likewise, if they see that you can get rid of this habit, they will too.
Use other activities to prevent children from biting their nails
We spend many hours of our time observing what the little ones are doing. Thanks to this, it is not so difficult for parents to prevent children from biting their nails before this action becomes a habit.
To do this, when you see your children with their hands in their mouths, you have to offer them an activity during which they will have to hold something. Drawing or coloring, making a puzzle or getting a puppet are some good options. Use what you have on hand to intervene as soon as possible.
Show the children their nails
If you don’t bite your nails, show the children your hands. This way, they will know the benefits of having beautiful and manicured nails. Generally, girls love to dye their nails, so you can take advantage of this fact.
