How to Stop Thumb Sucking

It was cute when she was a baby, but now that your child has arrive at kindergarten age, you’re starting to be anxious about her having her thumb in her mouth all the time. You feel uncomfortable when you’re out in community with her (What will the neighbors think?) and are worried about what her peers will say in school.

Pediatricians have experiential that the phenomenons only occur in western culture, within developed societies where children usually begin to spend their time bodily separate from their mothers at a very early age. Thumb sucking is rare in cultures where mothers tend to hold their babies for long periods or else keep them in physical contact with their bodies throughout their early years.

How to Stop Thumb Sucking

If not, try to talk out your aggravation with a friend or your spouse and wait a year or two before intervening.

Let the child decide it’s a problem. If there’s one message that pediatricians have about thumb sucking, it’s this: The best way to get a child to continue thumb sucking is to tell him or her to stop. A better plan is to wait until the child finds an inducement to quit the behavior, such as being teased at school about thumb sucking, and let him or her bring it up. Experts say that addressing the problem when the child is ready is more probable to be successful than attacking it head on and forcing him or her to quit.

How to Stop Thumb Sucking using reward system - Use a reward system. Pediatricians sometimes advocate a game-playing, reward-based system for helping kids stop sucking their thumbs. Try buying a almanac and placing it on the refrigerator. For each day you don’t see the child sucking his or her thumb, you can put a smiley-face sticker on the day. At the end of a set era of time, say a month, you can offer a modest reward, such as a toy or dinner at the child’s favorite eating place. This is how to stop thumb sucking with reward system.

How to Stop Thumb Sucking using ordeal therapy - Try ordeal therapy. How about trying a little reverse psychology? Point out to a thumb-sucking child that he or she isn’t being fair to the other fingers — so why not suck them, too? Give the child a timer and explain that it’s significant to suck all fingers for the same period. Often, the child will grow so tired of the procedure that they quit thumb sucking altogether. The only problem with this type of come up to is that kids are likely to see through it when it comes from a parent (they know the parent really wants them to stop altogether). If you think that this will be the case, a pediatrician or close friend of the family may be able to help. This is how to stop thumb sucking with ordeal therapy.

Start with the easy stuff, and then move on. First, you might propose that the child stop thumb sucking while in public, or some other time when he or she is most probable to comply. Then you can go on to the times when the habit is most deep-seated, such as bedtime. You may want to twice reward if the child doesn’t suck his or her thumb during the more demanding times.

Well this article has covered some simple ways on how to stop thumb sucking to help you with your question to how to stop thumb sucking.

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