Hair Pulling
This habit is not common, but it does occur sometimes. In the medical literature it is called trichotillomania and means someone has the habit of plucking the hair on their scalp, their eyebrows or their eyelashes. When children do this, parents become worried and try to work out a way (or ways) to get them to stop doing it. Instructing a child to stop may not help and sometimes only serves to aggravate the habit.
When getting rid of a habit is difficult, a wiser strategy is to try replacing it with another habit which is not as disturbing as the original one. This works because most people find getting rid of replacement habits easier than dealing with the original habit.
Replacement habits
Take time to consider, together with your child, what they could do instead of plucking out their hair. Could they, for example, keep some bubble wrap nearby and then, when they feel the urge to pluck, just pop the bubbles instead? Or could they keep a patch of some furry material with them and then, instead of plucking their hair, begin to pluck at the furry material? Is there another alternative of this type that would suit them better?
Encourage your child to come up with an idea for their replacement habit, and once it exists, help them adopt the new habit using the Kids’Skills steps.
Use the Kids’Skills steps
Encourage your child to come up with an idea for their replacement habit, and once it exists, help them adopt the new habit using the Kids’Skills steps. Get them to name the replacement habit, select their supporters, and make sure they decide how others can remind them if they occasionally forget the replacement behaviour.
Once a child has succeeded in replacing the hair plucking habit with the replacement habit, take time to celebrate and then move to the next step – working together on creative ways for them to also discard the replacement habit.
Possible skills
– the skill of simply refraining from plucking and doing nothing special instead
– the skill of replacing the hair plucking habit with another habit
– the skill of allowing others to remind you when to engage in a replacement habit rather than plucking your hair
This article is owned by: Kids’Skills http://www.kidsskillsapp.com/
