Picking at her face?
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Picking at her face?
| Mon, 12-12-2005 - 3:03pm |
DD has just started a new thing in the past couple of weeks. She picks her face until it bleeds! She will be sitting there doing whatever and she just grabs a piece of her face and peels the skin off! Everytime I see her doing it, I tell her to stop. Today I showed her in the mirror what she was doing to her face and she just said, "Kayleigh has spots!"
Why is she picking at her face? Her face is full of little scabs!


Hhmmm...
Well, Nathan will pick at his lips, when they're chapped...which is pretty much all the time!!!! He breathes with his mouth open alot so his lips tend to get dry, especially during the winter. I gave him some chapstick to use, but sometimes I have to remind him. He will also pick at other things he finds on his skin, but he doesn't just "pick" at himself, which is what you seem to be describing.
I'm thinking that her hands are probably needing to "do" something. Perhaps giving her something to do with her hands to distract her from her face? Fidgeting type toys, something small that she can carry around with her, to keep her busy? I know I have to watch Nathan and give him constant reminders about things like this. His lips will bleed too, I feel like I'm always checking on him, it is exhausting.
michelle
I think Michelle is right about distraction. My dd also used to pick at her lips (chapped or not!) until they bled. I tried all kinds of things. She learned not to do it in front of me and would wait to do it while napping and in bed at night. The only thing that was effective for awhile was buying a big box of bandaids at costco and putting one on each fingertip at night at that point and telling her she couldn't remove them.
This was when she was much younger though. I now realize that in her case, it was OCD/anxiety type behavior. It alleviated her anxiety in some way by giving her something to obsess over. I would find other ways to distract her (in addition to frequently telling her to not pick at her lips). For example, I was not a big proponent of children having tvs in the bedroom, but my dh insisted this would make her feel better at night. He was surprisingly right. She still sleeps with a tv in her room at night and it has a sleep timer on it. Again, I did not believe in doing that, but it seemed to help her stop doing that to herself at night. She no longer picks at her lip even if she doesn't have the tv to fall asleep to, but I still let her have the tv because the anxiety still exists
So, I agree with Michelle that distraction here will be key. Finding a healthier way to alleviate her anxiety will take a bit of detective work because everyone is so different but I'm sure there's something that seems to soothe her that you have noticed or recall.
LR
Teresa
Thank you everyone. I am so glad that this board is here.