Nail Biting Basics

Home
>
Parenting
>
Nail Biting Basics

Nail Biting Basics

Nail biting in all its various forms is problematic behavior beset by peculiarity and contradiction. Technically speaking, the correct word for nail biting is ANONYCHOPHAGIA.

Nail biting typically begins between the ages of five and 10 and is common among children as well as adults. As many as one in three Americans bite their nails.

One of the more noteworthy and generally surprising things about nail biting is its high instance. It crosses every social and economic barrier. Prevalence figures for children are much higher than for adults.

Results of nail biting can result in short, ragged nails. It may also lead to damaged cuticles as well as bleeding around the edges of the nails. Infections can also develop if nails are not properly attended to.

Most relevant studies have found that nail biting tends to peak out around puberty.

A study by Malon and Massmer studied the behavior in the Chicago school systems and reported that nail biting is prevalent in about 60 percent of children age eight to eleven.

Most people agree it is a learned habit, perhaps picked up by watching a parent or someone else biting their nails.

Nail biting is an extremely tough habit to break and treatment for it varies.

One possible solution is identifying the reason for nail biting. Avoidance or modification of these situations can be beneficial to the eventual elimination of the habit.

Improving self-esteem is also helpful when attempting to break the habit.

Products such as CONTROL-IT are available on the market and are designed to aid nail biters in breaking their habit. According to www.stopbitingnails.com , CONTROL-IT is a gentle and natural alternative to help prevent biting. A mild unpleasant taste helps to remind users to stop biting their nails.

A host of research efforts both in America and Europe sought to ascertain if in fact nail biting was linked to mental illness in one form or another. Most people would have anticipated they found a high prevalence of nail biting among the mentally disordered; however, they found that nail biting, in and of itself, is not systematic of any form of mental disorder or maladjustment.

Nail biting crosses all national borders, genders, and both social and economic lines and may also originate from a primal need for self-grooming. It affects both the nails and the cuticles; with greater potential harm caused via infection to the cuticle and nail biting tends to be a private affair, and is a relatively isolated form of self-indulgence.

Nail biting may be treated addressing symptom rather than cause; it is a habit, not a disease.

Owner: Christopher Joel Henry; born: December 18, 1958; birthplace: California

Married: Mrs. Trudy Henry

Mr. Henry has been an entrepreneur the majority of his adult life, generally in engineering pursuits. Most recently he has been a business applications software consultant to Fortune 500 companies, in the greater Boston area.

He is an honored member of the International Who's Who of Science and Engineering, as well as a member of the New England Systems Group.

In The News:

'Facebook parenting' is destroying our children's privacy
CNN
Editor's note: Aisha Sultan is a parenting columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and recent Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. Follow her on Twitter: @AishaS. Jon Miller is director of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth in ...

and more »

Apodaca: Don't listen to parenting naysayers
Daily Pilot
The photo was a provocative lead-in for an article on the latest controversy over the issue of child rearing, the practice of what's called attachment parenting. Now the subject is all over the news, providing fodder for talk shows, ...

Sydney Morning Herald
Judges rarely meet young in parenting disputes, says study
Sydney Morning Herald
In New Zealand, 65 per cent of Family Court judges said they often, very often or always met a child who was the subject of a parenting dispute. Dr Fernando said Australia was lagging behind other countries in attitudes to children meeting with judges.

and more »

Putting The Post-Deployment Family Back Together
Vermont Public Radio
Kevin Ross, 31, says the ADAPT parenting program has helped him and his family communicate more effectively. When parents deploy to a war zone overseas, their absence can have ripple effects that are felt long after they return.

and more »

Compete, Pout, Martyr and Shout
Huffington Post (blog)
Please let us teach you the Handel Method®, or if you already know it, let us help you apply it to your parenting. If you want to learn how to put the above into practice, come to Parenting by Design, the four-week course to design and implement the ...

Parenting group bans unvaccinated adults
msnbc.com (blog)
By Diane Mapes The recent whooping cough (pertussis) epidemic in Washington state has prompted the parent support group PEPS to issue a new policy regarding participation in their groups. "Because of the pertussis epidemic in Washington, ...

and more »

The Water Cooler: Parenting
San Francisco Chronicle (blog)
The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it! The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon! Do you think people should have to take a mandatory course in parenting before ...

CBS Local
Legacy Parenting Project Holds Conference To Help Teen Moms
CBS Local
By Tim Jimenez PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The Legacy Parenting Project, a non-profit helping young parents, held a conference for more than 100 teen mothers today at a hotel at Philadelphia International Airport. Morgan is a high school senior in Aston and ...

Sydney Morning Herald
Brad Pitt, 'Killing Them Softly': Actor Talks Stepping Behind Camera ...
Huffington Post
By JAKE COYLE 05/24/12 06:53 AM ET Since he last collaborated with Andrew Dominik, he's starred in the Coen brothers' "Burn After Reading," David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," Terrence ...
Pitt rules out becoming a directorWTVQ

all 287 news articles »

Parenting And The Zen Of Roller Coaster Riding
Huffington Post
It's parenting. Growing up has its ups and downs, some wild, many downright frightening. Our kids must stay on for the ride, because you can't get from childhood to adulthood without all these lurches and loops. Parents, though, have a choice (or a ...

Google News