Okay, so what about this parent who submitted the question: “How do I stop my child from picking at their fingers and their toes and blinking hard, like a nervous tick?”
I would probably want to get my child assessed for what that may be, because there may be a physiological response. It may be a tick that happens usually.
In that situation, I would still want to implement some strategies to help my child understand what’s going on and see if we can get the body—because that picking is probably a physiological need that started early on.
My suggestion would be to talk with a doctor about potential solutions. I would also want counseling in this situation to see if we can talk with the child about what their fears are and what that means—because sometimes they can become obsessed with it, and sometimes it’s such a pattern that they don’t even realize they’re doing it.
What we want to learn to do—and this is something that with cognitive behavioral therapy—you could probably create some interventions to help disrupt the pattern. I would want to find someone who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy to implement strategies that increase awareness and develop a new pattern of activity.
If it’s picking or something else, I’d want them to learn alternative strategies. Ironically, we don’t want to take away that coping mechanism until they’ve developed another strategy.
Initially, we want to understand it—the fear if they don’t do it—or bring it from the subconscious mind into the conscious mind so they’re aware it’s happening. If they’ve done it so much, it’s probably happening subconsciously, without thought.
In this situation, I’d want to help them learn how to bring it into awareness and develop new strategies instead of that specific coping mechanism.
