The Family Education Training Center of Hawai`i 

“Nicki!” Mrs. Petterson shouted, “Get your finger out of your nose!”  She grabbed her wrist and swatted her hand in time to her exclamations: “That’s gross and disgusting and you’ll infect your nose.”

Nicki was startled and began to cry.

“Stop crying and go wash your hands and face.”

Nicki did so, snuffling and rubbing her eyes.

Ten minutes later, however, she was playing with her teddy bears and picking her nose again.

“Nicki! What am I going to do with you?” her mother screamed.  “Good girls do not do that.  It’s impolite.  Do you want to be a good girl or a bad girl?  We’ll have to start calling you ‘Miss Piggy’!”

Nicki wiped her hand on her shirt, stared up at her, teary eyed and responded “I don’t want to be a bad girl.  I don’t want you to call me ‘Miss Piggy’.”

Satisfied with her response, Mrs. Petterson went back to her work.   Moments later, however, she caught Nicki with her finger up her nose again.  In frustration she grabbed her digital camera and said, “I’m going to take pictures of you doing that so that you can see how disgusting it is.”

Nicki tried to avoid playing near her mother that day, but she managed to take several pictures.  That evening the mother showed these, to her embarrassment, to her father, who shook his head, but laughed at the idea of calling her ‘Miss Piggy’.

DISCUSSION

 
Nervous habits (such as nose-picking, chewing hair, picking at one’s face, and nail-biting) are caused by NERVOUSNESS and often accompany a child feeling worthless and inadequate.  They are not extinguished by making the child MORE NERVOUS and feeling more inadequate.  Nervousness stems from insecurity and fear that one is not an important or valued member of one’s family or important groups, and that one can do nothing about this.  The child does not feel respected by the parents and important others.  Bad habits have the counter-productive effect of pushing important others away.  Children feel even less respected and valued when demeaned by disrespectful comments.

 As in many of our other examples, the parent’s task is two-fold: 1) to help the child get rid of these counterproductive habits that are making the underlying problem worse by alienating others; 2) to relieve the underlying anxiety by shoring up the child’s belief in himself and his value vis-à-vis the parents and important others.   Drawing attention to the habit, in young children has the effect of either turning it into an attention-getting ploy or increasing the underlying anxiety about it.  Both result in strengthening the alienating habit.

The most effective way to extinguish bad habits is to pay as little attention to these as possible.  (Saying nothing about such habits is a must with teenagers).  If you find it impossible to be around the child and his habits, you can remove yourself to another room.  However, at the same time, observe when the child is least nervous and make sure to spend time with him when he is not performing his nervous behaviors.

 
To relieve the underlying anxieties, the parent must work on the child’s self-esteem through massive acknowledgment and encouragement of what the child CAN do right.  This takes the form of noticing and appreciating the child’s strengths and constructive behaviors, no matter how small.  Empty praise, however, will not work, as the sensitive child can see through this.  You need to find aspects you DO like about your child.  

In addition, the parent needs to stabilize a time for POSTIVE, reinforcing contact with the child.  The most effective way to do this is by instituting “special, individual time” as described in our other examples.

SOLUTION 

Nicki’s parents listened to our advice.  They apologized to Nicki for demeaning her with the photos and destroyed them and put the camera away in a closet.  They admitted that they had made a mistake and asked her to forgive them.

Then they turned the topic to ask if she would like to spend special, individual time for 10-minutes each day with each of her parents.  They explained that she could choose the game or activity and the parent would join in, and that they would set a timer to tell them when the time was up for that day.  Nicki liked the idea and chose after school for her time with Mom and right after dinner for her time with Dad. 

In addition, Mom asked Nicki to help her cook each evening, and Dad asked her to help him build things and work in the garden on the weekends.  They also added a Sunday “beach day” to their routine.

Nothing more was ever said about nose-picking in the household.  The parents either busied themselves doing something or excused themselves to the bathroom whenever she started picking her nose.

Children at school continued to tease Nicki about her nose-picking and she tried very hard to stop doing so at school.  Even at home, though, she had picked her nose less and less as she was engaged a lot of the time in either work or play activities with her parents.