And I thought only dogs chewed clothes.......

[IADad]

apparently 8yo boys can be fond of the practice as well.

So DS1 has been chewing on the tip of the right collor of all his shirts...

He started doing it a while back, we told him about it and that it needed to stop, he couldn't break the habit, so I moistened a corner and dipped it in a little cayenne...it worked he stopped doing it....until now. the habit has resurfaced, and like a lot of bad habits, he doesn't even realize he's doing it. I know he's genuinely trying to stop, so I don't want to "poison" the tip again. I've threatened to start docking his allowance, but the thing is I know it concerns him and he wants to stop, he just absent-mindedly falls into do it, so I have a hard time punishing him for something he's not intentionally doing. I was counting on getting at least some use out of thesee shirts by his little brother, guess that's shot.

I really want to break him of this before he starts back to school in the fall with new uniform shirts that we definitely want to get two wearer's worth.

Do you think a summer of collarless shirts will break him of the habit? Any other ideas?

 

[Jeremy+3]

If he gets pocket money why don't you make him pay for any clothes he has ruined?

 

[mom2many]

Oh I know this one, Lupan was the worst he would "eat" the collars of his shirt, it drove us insane all his collars were misshaped and always wet, we just kept telling him to stop...over and over again! Then one day he never did it again.

My worst chewer was Cole (maybe it the grossest, but he literally ate the railing around the top of his bunk bed. I kept finding pieces of wood in his room but could not figure out where the heck it was coming from, then one day I climbed up on his bed to get something and imagine my shock when i discovered my 6 year old was really a beaver! He did stop but only cause I threatened to throw his bed in the trash!

 

[ElliottCarasDad]

Elliott does the same thing to his left collar. Shirts, jackets, whatever he is wearing. Since that is the least of our worries, we try not to be to harsh on him about it.

 

[Cop2be]

Sometimes a habit never ends.
I "chew" on my non collar'd shirts, like athletic t-shirts, I chew on those out of habit/nervousness..

 

[Jordy]

if the cayanne worked the first time maybe tell him your going to do it again and he might be to scared to chew "just in case?"

 

[IADad]

thanks all.

Maybe I should swap shirts with ECD...DS1 only chews the "right' collar...the lefts are in pristine shape.

I'm pretty sure that this is just a habit, like biting fingernails, jeremy, I've told him that his shirts each cost the equivalent of 4 weeks of allowance and that if he continues to do it we're going to have to look into keeping some of his money to pay for shirts. I'm kind of torn, because I don't want to add the stress of worrying about the consequence and have that make the problem worse. I also don't want to drive him to lie by threatening...ya know if he's trying to stop and he fails then has to try tto lie his way out of it then it's a negative spiral. I'm trying to think of a positive way to change the behavior. I wonder if a reward for keeping new shirts un-chewed would be useful....in the mean time I may talk about returning to cayenne...