Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi
As many of you know my daughter is awaiting asd assessment, she has always stimmed although I did not always recognise it as like many people I had been told stimming was rocking/flapping which I now know is not true.
She went through a stage at age 3 for a year of picking and ripping her finger nails off and then starting on her toes, as I was unaware that this was a form of stimming at the time I used to get cross with her for it until she stopped.
She also used to repeatedly pull at her teeth in fact she pulled 8 baby teeth out in 2 months
Problem I have now is that she has started doing both of these things again her fingers are a mess her feet painful and she ended up at the dentist for trying to pull out her adult teeth.
I recognise now that this is stimming and understand the importance of allowing her to regulate this way but she is hurting herself does anybody have any advice on how to get her to alter the stims? I have tried talking to her suggested tapping her fingers instead of picking and suggested chewing something but she just screamed at me
I have tried to work out what is triggering the need to stim but so far I have found no pattern
Thanks for the reply, no she hasn't seen a behaviour therapist yet still waiting for camhs to see her and refer her for this.
I did try the gp the only thing they suggested was a nail Polish that tastes bad despite me explaining she's not bitting her nails!
Hi there,
Stimming can take many forms, including scratching or picking skin, drumming fingers, twirling hair, etc.
Has your daughter had any input from a behaviour therapist? It might be worth investigating this (via her GP). These behaviours can take a long time to bring under control to make them less damaging (if they are), so some expert input would be useful.
Have a look at some of the resources on this site (under 'Behaviour', for instance, or some of the related threads listed on the right). You might also find this helpful:
Stimming
All the best,
Tom