Thumb Sucking - Prior Lake,MN

I just asked this question myself not too long ago, and got some interesting responses. I'm glad you asked too because I now have more ideas.

My son is 7 as well, going into the second grade, and he sucks his thumb too. I think I have to agree that it is really hard (not quite impossible, though I think detrimental) to force them to stop if they're not ready. When he is busy/distracted, he tends to suck his thumb less, but it can be hard to try to keep a child busy like that 24/7 (if for no other reason than it's a drain on your sanity to try to keep your attention on a child for that long ;)).

Also, I realize that really I know a bit of how it is from personal experience as well. Not with thumb-sucking, but with picking at my skin and/or plucking hairs. It's an obsessive thing, really, and tends to be worst when I'm anxious, or bored. Same with me, if I'm distracted, I do it less, but keeping distracted enough to keep from doing it is hard. Plus, sometimes the harder I try -not- to, the worse it gets (kind of like how trying too hard to get to sleep makes it harder to sleep).

I also suspect that part of the reason I have such a problem with it is because I had the thumb-sucking "beat" out of me...That makes it hard for me as well dealing with my son. I don't want to push him too hard, but sometimes seeing him suck his thumb all the time drives me nuts...

Trying to limit the behavior to certain rooms and/or times sounds fairly reasonable to me, I might have to try that...then he can shove his hands down his pants at the same time as he is so fond of doing...*sigh* ;)

I used to suck my thumb until I was about this same age. Pretty soon, the social aspects of what this means will kick in and he'll be sure he doesn't do it in front of his peers-if he hasn't stopped this already. I had neighbors who sucked their thumbs until they were much older and they still did it in front of people. I think that Liz has a great suggestion. Remember it is a habit that goes back a long way! It will take lots of time to stop. I remember being a child and getting frustrated because I would wake up with my thumb in my mouth even though I hadn't tried to put it there! It is a habit he will grow out of.

My daughter will be 7 in December. She is going into first grade. We've never discouraged the thumb sucking, as we felt it was important to let her hold onto this thing that comforts her since she has a lot of issues related to living in an orphanage in another country.

But lately I've been feeling pretty ambivelant about it. I spoke with her psychologist, who said, yes, it's time to intervene.

He suggested telling her that thumb sucking is for private, and that from now on she should keep it to her bed room (and let her know she's free to do it there the rest of her life if she wants).

We implemented this, and have since stretched it to anywhere upstairs in the house (where the bedrooms are).

She particularly misses it watching tv and riding in the car. When she slips, I just say "you're free to go up to your room for a bit if you need..."

I know she sneeks it in the car from time to time, and mostly I ignore this as she has cut back so significantly.

Hope this helps.

You probably do not want to hear this but..... I am 28 years old and still suck my thumb my mother tried everything nothing worked I didn't even care what the other kids thought braces didn't even stop me. I only do it when I go to sleep or I am really tired. when I quite smoking in college I did it more often for awhile the only thing my mom didn't do was stuff like tying up my arm so I couldn't get my thumb in or having a cast put over my hand frankly I hurt my thumb once and just switched to the other one... Good Luck but from my point of view it is not the worst thing in the world

I know this may sound mean but What I did to get my daughter to stop is I put tabasco sauce on her thumbs. After the first day I started to see results and some days she even remided me to put the tabasco sauce on her thumbs.

One of my daycare children had this problem... the mother and I tried everything, talking, bribing, bad tastes and bandaids on the thumb, nothing worked. We were hoping that the teasing from other children at school might help, but a group of the girls decided it was "cool" to talk babytalk, and carry around pacifiers, so there was no teasing! Finally when she was about 9 the dentist (probably an orthodontist, I don't remember) installed an appliance similar to a retainer that had small spikes on the roof of her mouth. It would then not feel good to suck! I think she had it in for a few months, and hasn't sucked her thumb since! (The spikes aren't bad... I had a similar appliance when I was a teen to stop a "toungue thrust", or pushing out my top teeth with my tongue all the time causing buck teeth. It only hurt once or twice, then you are pretty trained! I STILL (I am 36) don't ever put my tongue against my front teeth!)

My aunt sucked her thumb until the day she died. She was 40. She didn't do it in public, and none of her friends knew she did. It was her way to cope. If your son does it in school, his friends WILL tease him, and he will stop in public, maybe even in private. Limit where he is allowed to do it (ie not in public or when you have company) He will stop when he's ready to, and not a moment sooner (no matter what you try)