My 4 year old grandson has become a nail biter. He bites it down to nothing. I am not happy with this behavior. It happens when someone raises their voice to him, by telling him “NO!†or “Stop That!†or when he is just watching TV he starts to chomp on his nails and sometimes it bleeds. Should I be concerned about? Should I try to stop him, and if so, how? Is this an underlining problem? Is this a sign low self-esteem?
Sometimes it’s a mild anxiety sometimes its just a boredom reflex. I would discourage it gently.
My oldest was cured from nail biting overnight buy showing her a live infrared live video of her hands both before and after washing them with soap. The video showed the staggering number of germs ( bacteria) on her hands at any one time. Se never put them in her mouth again! She also won’t pat the dogs without washing her hands after now or eat without washing her hands first. lol
We had the same problem. My 3 y.o. son stopped nail biting after watching some videos about germs on youtube. Any time he’s about to put his fingers in the mouth,I say “Do you want to have germs in your stomach?” and he starts his lecture on how bad nail biting is. 