I need her to breal the habit!!!

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Forum -> Parenting our children -> School age children

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Frenchfry

Tue, Feb 21 2012, 6:38 pm

My 8 year old has this awful habit of coloring under her nails with a pencil in school. I try to keep her nails really short, but as soon as they grow a tiny bit, she comes home with them black.

Help!!!

eytse

Tue, Feb 21 2012, 6:44 pm

oooh... I used to do that... it was bad. sorry! I don't have any advice or remember how I stopped, except that eventually I realized how ugly it was... I was about 11. Sorry I don't have any advice, but I think, at least, I turned out ok!

Frenchfry

Tue, Feb 21 2012, 7:25 pm

Thanks for the chizzuk, but I don't think I can wait 3 years. Anyone else?

michal817

Tue, Feb 21 2012, 8:08 pm

Have you tried instituting a reward chart for her? For each day that she comes home without coloring under her nails, she gets a sticker/star/whatever is cheap and easy to do. When she collects a certain amount of these tokens, she gets a bigger prize. Obviously, the bigger prize would have to be something valuable to her, something that she would want to have, or else there wouldn't be an incentive to stop coloring. Whenever she gets a token, make sure to praise her as well, because the eventual goal will be to stop giving her tokens and to have the praise alone be enough of a motivator to stop her coloring.

Also, have you spoken with the teacher about it? It's possible that she does it when she's feeling stressed or uncomfortable in some way. Perhaps the teacher could try to observe her to see when it happens and what the circumstances surrounding it are.

ElTam

Tue, Feb 21 2012, 8:36 pm

1. Brainstorm what else she can do when she needs to do this. Can she doodle? Hum?
2. Small reward for every day she doesn't do it. Bigger reward if she makes it a week.

It takes 30 days to break a habit.

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