5 Year Old Always Smelling Hands

Updated on March 19, 2012
S.K. asks from Castle Rock, CO
4 answers

My daughter was a really bad nail biter and she has all of a sudden quit doing that (yay) buuuut she has picked up this habit of smelling her hands. She will touch something and automatically see if her hands smell. Is this a habit? If I notice her doing it i will remind her not to smell her fingers (hands) and that is how germs enter our bodies but it seems that she is doing it a little more frequently than I find normal.

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S.W.

answers from Minneapolis on

I do that all the time. Really, I do. I am also a cuticle biter and a skin picker. I usually can refrain from these things in public, but if I were a kid, I might want my parent to help me drop these habits.

Two ways to help kids drop habits. First is to ignore them and they sometimes just go away. Second, is to gently remind them that they are doing "it" and redirect them. The second can work if they don't even realize that they are doing "it".

2 moms found this helpful
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M.P.

answers from Portland on

She's exploring her environment. I see nothing wrong with smelling her fingers. She's not putting them in her mouth so where's the concern about germs? And at home she's already exposed to all those germs.

A very good way to extinguish behavior is to completely ignore it.

1 mom found this helpful
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S.H.

answers from Honolulu on

She will outgrow that too.
No worries.

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

K.H.

answers from Los Angeles on

No need to worry. My husband does the same thing :)

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