It can be worrisome to watch your child being obsessed with thumb sucking. There are several reasons for thumb sucking in kids which I have discussed in my previous post. Though this habit can be harmless during the initial stages, prolonged thumb sucking can have detrimental effects on your child. So, it is imperative to intercept at the right time and stop thumb sucking in kids. In this article, I will discuss with you few easy and creative methods to stop thumb sucking without stressing yourself or your child.
Effects of Thumb Sucking
First, you have to understand the reasons as to why thumb sucking should be intervened and corrected? If you are not stepping in to stop thumb sucking at the right time and at the right stage then,
- The child’s dentoalveolar* growth pattern can be deranged and result in malalignment of teeth. ( *dentoalveolar – the teeth and the alveolar bone that supports the teeth)
- Because of the malalignment, the child can have psychological deprivation. The child will hesitate to talk to friends and prefer isolated play with the fear of being nagged.
Now that you know the damaging impacts of thumb sucking, when is the appropriate time to intercept this habit?
Phases of Thumb Sucking
A thumb sucker’s journey travels through three phases. Let’s see when you should intervene and take steps to stop thumb sucking.
Phase 1
This is the period between birth till 3 years of age. Thumb sucking habit at this stage is very normal. Some children will naturally grow out of this habit around 2 to 2.5 years while some may tend to continue. When the thumb sucking habit lingers beyond 2.5 years then your intervention is needed.
Phase 2
This stage covers the age of 3 years to 6-7 years. Children who are in this age group and still thumb sucking can fall into two categories.
- Kids who do it for a reason. Their habit can be meaningful. For example, the child can be feeling lonely because his parents are working. Or there can be other stressful reasons which urge the child to soothe himself with thumb sucking. In this case, the psychological cause of thumb sucking needs to be addressed along with your other efforts to stop thumb sucking.
- Kids who do it without any reason. This can be an empty habit. This needs to be intervened and corrected promptly.
Phase 3
This phase covers the period beyond 6-7 years of age. At this stage, the thumb sucking habit has become serious. Children at this phase will need psychotherapy and therapeutic dental treatment. Regular home techniques to stop thumb sucking may not work.
Having identified the right stage to intervene, how can you make your child say goodbye to Mr Thumb?
Ways to Stop Thumb Sucking
If your child is at the end of Phase 1 or in Phase 2 (mentioned above) you may follow the below three methods to stop thumb sucking.
There are many hard ways to stop thumb sucking like applying bitter tasting pastes on the thumb or using guards etc., But all these can create a stressful atmosphere and unpleasant experience. Instead, you should ensure not to disturb the child psychologically and stop thumb sucking as gently as possible.
Based on this theory, I am suggesting the below techniques and I have found them working powerfully in many of my little patients. These are some simple yet effective and innovative ways to put a stop to your child’s, Mr Thumb.
1. Make the Child Aware of the Habit
You can make your child sit in front of the mirror and ask her to suck her thumb. This will make her realise how awkward she looks. She will be aware of what she is doing. This will create an internal urge to stop the habit.
In short, you have to make your child get bored of this habit and remove the pleasure from it by making her do it repeatedly in front of the mirror. This conscious purposeful repetition method is called Dunlop Beta Hypothesis.
2. Stories with Thumb Puppets
The idea is to make Mr thumb your child’s friend who will take a different character each day. When you are putting your child to sleep take a thumb puppet. Make up a story like the character had some bad oral habits and later corrects them and maintains good oral hygiene. Use the puppet to make funny movements and keep the story comical and engaging.
Then make your child wear that thumb puppet and put them both to sleep. The child will sleep wearing his new friend which will prevent him from thumb sucking. The next day you can choose a different thumb puppet and a different story about inculcating oral hygiene.
For the seven days, you can choose seven different puppets and seven different stories that are creative, interesting and educates your child about his oral hygiene. For example, Monday – Mr Croc; Tuesday – Ms Fish; Wednesday – Mr Peppa Pig; etc., Then you can let the kid and puppet sleep together.
Following this regularly will make the child transfer his attention from thumb sucking to the puppet stories and the puppet itself. As much as you keep this amusing, this method will successfully stop thumb sucking in your child.
Example Story
Add silly gestures, voice modulations and hilarious movements in between the stories. Stories can be like this.
“Meet your new friend Mr Croc. Do you know how many teeth Mr Croc has? No, it’s not 10 or 20. Mr Croc has 80 teeth. But sadly, Mr Croc didn’t brush his teeth every day. He cried and shouted when his mother asked him to brush. Soon the colour of his teeth changed from white to yellow and then to brown. The food he ate got stuck between the teeth and since he didn’t brush daily they started to decay his teeth.”
“Whenever his friends cracked a joke, Mr Croc used to laugh loudly showing all his teeth. But now his friends were kidding him for the brown teeth and the bad smell that came from his mouth when he spoke. Mr Croc was upset about this.”
“He told his mother that his friends were making fun of him. Mr Croc’s mother gave an idea. Why don’t you start brushing your teeth every day? Mr Croc didn’t like the idea but he didn’t have any other option. So he decided to give it a try.”
“He started brushing his teeth every day and soon there was no bad odour from his mouth. His mother encouraged him to brush twice a day. He readily agreed to this. After few days Mr Croc’s teeth colour started to change. He was getting back his pearl white teeth. His friends are no more kidding him and he is very happy.”
“Do you also want your teeth as white as Mr Croc? Will you also brush your teeth twice every day? Good! Now it’s time to sleep. Do you want to wear Mr Croc? He can sleep along with you.”
Saying this you can make the child wear this thumb puppet and put him to sleep. Wearing this puppet he won’t be able to suck his thumb and will think about the story and sleep off.
3. Set Self-attainable Goals
You can set up a monthly goal and reward system to help your child get rid of the thumb sucking habit. Draw and set a beautiful, attractive calendar for that month (If the child is old enough you can let him prepare the calendar). The calendar can be named as ” <Your Child Name>’s Mr Thumb Calendar”.
Incorporate pictures like ugly and sad Mr Thumb (with wrinkles and dark colour) at the beginning of the month and a magnificent and happy Mr Thumb (with an eminent crown and bright colour) at the end of the month. The goal is to change from ugly Mr Thumb to magnificent Mr Thumb by the end of the month.
A day without thumb sucking is a day to be cherished with a smiley. You can make the child paste a smiling emoji for that day on the calendar. A day with Mr Thumb inside the mouth is a day to regret with a sad face. The child can paste a sad emoji for that day on the calendar.
At the end of the month, you can count the number of smiling emojis and reward him or her with a favourite dinner, an extra bedtime story, take for a walk etc., You can repeat this each month till the child stops thumb sucking completely. Make sure to keep the rewards healthy and attractive but not like a bribe (junk food or extra screen time) which can be misleading.
How can you succeed?
Throughout this journey, you have to be patient. Shouting or punishing will not work with the little minds. The child is trying to get rid of a long-practised soothing habit. It will take time.
The child has to do it willingly to avoid any psychological impacts. So constant encouragement with fun-filled activities alone can help your child to stop thumb sucking without much stress.
If you have any queries related to your child’s oral hygiene you can post them in the comments section. I will answer them as early as possible.
Kindly share this article with your fellow parents so that they can help their child to stop thumb sucking.
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Image Credit: Main Image by Lucian Teo on VisualHunt; Mirror Thumb Sucking image by BuhSnarf on VisualHunt ;