"I needed a strategy that would be effective but wouldn't take over our lives. I came up with an approach I hoped would not only eliminate thumb-sucking but provide a lesson she could use for the rest of her life."

 

by Trudy Palmer

Helping my daughter stop sucking her thumb had less to do with her than with others. Suddenly, when she turned 3, her thumb-sucking became the only thing strangers seemed to notice. If it wasn't the person at the dry cleaners joking about how delicious that thumb must taste, it was the woman at the bagel shop admonishing, "You're too old to be sucking your thumb!" Overnight, it seemed, the public had decided that the only thing noteworthy about my daughter was her thumb.

The last thing I wanted was for my daughter to see herself reflected in the public eye solely as a thumb-sucker, so I sprang into action.

First, I tried to get her to stop cold turkey. I distracted her, nagged her, and even pulled her thumb out of her mouth. No surprise, none of these options worked. (Nor did they contribute to the harmony of our interactions!)

As with so many other aspects of parenting children, I needed a strategy that would be effective but wouldn't take over our lives. In the end, I came up with an approach that I hoped would not only eliminate the thumb-sucking but provide a lesson she could use for the rest of her life.

No nagging needed

The approach was simple and gradual. I put a Band-aid on her thumb for an hour the first day, two hours the next, three the third, etc. When her time wearing the bandage was up, she could suck her thumb to her heart's content—without comment from me.

One of the beauties of this approach was that it included no nagging whatsoever. When the bandage was on, it did the reminding for me. When it was off, she'd earned the right to suck her thumb, so I felt no need to nag.

That doesn't mean we didn't talk about her thumb. I discussed the plan with her before we began. And each day, when I put the Band-aid on, we chatted about it. She was interested in and cheery about the process. As far as I could tell, she saw it as an adventure—in part, I assume, because it had a daily destination, or endpoint, at which time she could suck her thumb.

Once we built up to nine or 10 hours, however, she lost interest in the adventure and wanted to wear the Band-aid all day long. Soon, she had no need even for that; she'd broken the habit altogether.

This gradual approach to ending thumb-sucking was not only effective but harmonious. The daily bandaging and timer-setting made it a project we did together instead of a task she faced alone. She also experienced two sets of rewards: praise for not sucking her thumb when it was bandaged and getting to suck her thumb when it wasn't! In short, she earned the chance to indulge her loved habit even as she was leaving that habit behind.

Also, because thumb-sucking remained an acceptable activity during the weaning process, it never took on the glamour that comes with being forbidden. Instead, it simply lost its allure as time without thumb-sucking became the norm.

I wish I could say that, in her teen years, this former thumb-sucker (now a senior in high school) was using this approach to wean herself from habits like procrastination and eating junk food, but if that's what she's up to, the progress is so gradual as to be imperceptible. Still, I like to think that the lessons learned from gently outgrowing thumb-sucking live somewhere in her heart since it was love, after all, that led me to craft a gentle, hour-by-hour adventure for the then pint-sized love of my life.

For other strategies:

• The Doctors Book of Home Remedies for Children (1994) – You can read an excerpt that deals with thumb-sucking on mothernature.com.

• David Decides About Thumbsucking: A Story for Children, A Guide for Parents, by Susan Heitler (1986) – This book provides an easy way to broach the topic with children and includes a section of advice for parents. You can read a review of the book here.

Trudy Palmer works in the marketing department at The Principia in Elsah, Illinois. She is the editor of Principia Purpose, an alumni magazine.