Nail biting is quite a common habit in young children and adults. While it is rather uncommon in children under the age of three, the incidence of children who bite their nails steadily increases as they get older. It is estimated that one-third of all children between the ages of seven and ten bite their nails. And this climbs to almost half of all young adolescents. While young, boys and girls have equal tendency to acquire nail biting, but it is the boys who lead the pack of nail biters after the age of ten.

Nail biting usually just causes short, ragged nails. Others may find themselves with complications due to damaged cuticles, bleeding at the edges of the nail, and skin infections. It may also cause small fractures of the teeth although this is uncommon.

The cause of nail biting has universally been attributed to stress. However, nail biting, as common as it is, has not been extensively studied. Other causes of nail biting may be present that we are unaware of. Some have suggested there may be a genetic component because there is often a history of the parents who bite their nails. But others have argued that that supports the theory it is a learned habit, not a genetic one. There seems to be a propensity of former thumb suckers to take up the habit of nail biting, but there are plenty of children who bite their nails who never sucked their thumb. So, what we are left with is anxiety being the biggest culprit of nail biting.

For children, stress may be caused from things considered good as well as bad. Moving to a new house is often a fun thing for a family, but may cause anxiety in a child. An adventurous story being read at bedtime is a fun thing, but can be stressful as well. The point is that there may be things in a child's environment that are mildly stressful to him but are not perceived as stressful to adults.

Treatment for nail biting should involve looking for the situations that seem to facilitate your son biting his nails. Once you have identified those situations, you can look to eliminate or modify them. Notice, I mention modifying the situations, not modifying the behavior of nail biting. Punishing or nagging may only serve to make the nail biting worse. In addition, focusing on building self esteem is a helpful additive in this equation. In older children, verbal reminders and using bitter tasting preparations to the nails may be helpful, but only if used with consent of the child. Having been a big nail biter myself, I can tell you it is quite a difficult habit to break. Keep an empathetic attitude, give loving support, and be creative in your distraction techniques when you find your son in situations that cause him to bite his nails. 

Is there any cure for nail biting?
Nail biting is wide spread and common. Approximately 20% of the adult population is at any one time a nail biter, with rates among college students being much higher (30%). Nail biting originates at the age of five or six years old. Because both habits originate and dissipate at roughly the same age, it has been theorized that nail biting is a left over and socially acceptable form of childhood thumb or finger sucking. Nail biting is prevalent across nationalities, age groups, demographics and occupations. Although referred to as a nervous habit, there is no clinical data anywhere in the world to support the theory that stress or anxiety causes nail biting. Contrary to popular opinion, nail biting does not typically occur during periods of high stress. Instead, the habit often rears up during quiet, inactive and solitary moments. Despite varying opinions, the truth is, nobody really knows what causes nail biting. This fact however, is unimportant to the cure.
obvious that the most outstanding finding is the diversification of factors responsible for the initiation of this behavior pattern. It follows that a multiple factor interpretation must be used when an overall explanation is sought.” If you are spending vast sums of money on stress reduction, hypnosis, creams and lotions, etc, you should know that these methods are often failure ridden. Happily, nail biting is an example of a problem whose solution is unrelated to the cause of that problem.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment