How to change the habit of children sucking their fingers

When a child is very young, sucking his fingers is the beginning of his understanding of the world. Parents should encourage him more at this time, but when the child grows up, he should not have the habit of sucking his fingers. Many parents will find that it is difficult to get their children to change the habit of sucking their fingers when they grow up. At this time, it will cause some harm to the children. Parents should have some methods to help their children change the habit of sucking their fingers.

How to stop your child from sucking his fingers

1. Ignore

This is the most commonly used and most effective method, because very few babies will continue to have a habit after the age of 5. If parents use methods that bring more negative effects to help them quit, it will reinforce the behavior.

2. Reward method

Use appropriate praise and encouragement to help your baby get rid of the habit of sucking his fingers.

3. Dispersion method

If the baby sucks his fingers because he is bored, parents can divert his attention through some interactive games.

4. Happy method

If the baby receives enough emotional care, he will not want to get happiness by sucking his fingers, so if parents give more care, they can also help the baby quit the habit of sucking fingers.

5. Sucking fingers vs. sucking pacifiers

Some mothers feel that sucking from a bottle is the same as sucking from a finger, so why not use a bottle instead of a pacifier? And on TV, foreign mothers all do this.

6. Aversion therapy

During childhood, if a child develops the habit of sucking his fingers or biting his nails, aversion therapy can be used to treat and correct it. For example, if you apply berberine water or chili water on children's fingers, they will feel the pain of biting their nails or sucking their fingers, and thus quit this bad habit.

The bad effects of children sucking their fingers

1. If the permanent teeth happen to grow during the process of sucking the fingers, the direction of the force applied when sucking the fingers will cause the teeth to grow in the incorrect direction, which will affect the arrangement and bite of the teeth and easily cause oral problems.

2. Due to improper force application direction, the upper and lower jaws of the mouth may be deformed.

3. The appearance of the face will be deformed due to incorrect bite, and the baby may be laughed at, resulting in negative emotions such as inferiority complex.

4. Because the teeth are not aligned properly, there will be air leakage or unclear pronunciation when speaking, resulting in unclear speech.

5. Germs may be brought into the mouth, making the baby more likely to catch a cold or gastroenteritis.