Does your child bite their nails?

Well I certainly didn't grow out of it, (blushes with shame!) I am 37 and I still bite my nails! Maybe if I mum threatened to put nail varnish on my finger nails when I was younger it might have done the trick, but I am sure hope they grow out of it my friend, I admit it's a disgusting habit to have and very unhygienic too! I think a lot of adults bite their nails just as much as children do!

hi humbug, No none of my three children have ever bitten their nails but I at present have 6 long nails and 4 short bitten ones, when they break and I haven't a nail file I can't resist a nibble as mine usually break right a the bottom when they do go, I have to resist the urge until they grow again but sometimes it is hard if there is a loose bit. Don't know why people would suddenly start biting though, especially children. Huggles. Ellie :D

My daughter is 30 years old and still bites her nail. My son no longer bites his nails though at 28. When they were small we would put a product on their nails that stopped them from biting them. I can't recall the name of this product though at this time. It worked great as long as they didn't wash it off. Well that did not last long for my daughter. But my son was naive and never learned that washing it off was the thing to do. To this day I still tell my daughter to stop biting her naials. HAPPY POSTINGS FROM GRANDPA BOB !!~

My child does not bite his nails but my husband does. My son tries to do everything his dad does so i am trying to make my husband stop before our son picks up the habit too. It is a bad habit and drives me crazy!

I used to bite my nails (now I suck on my fingers whenever I eat something with my hands) and I don't know why I used to bite my nails when I was in your son's age... whenever I had like nothing (whatsoever) to do, I used to bite my nails for like no reason.

Hello Humbug25, i do not have children, although when i was younger, at my primary school, i had a friend who constantly bit their nails. I reckon he was nervous, the trigger to biting his nails.

HI humbug, my 8 yr old son does not bite his nail but he makes me bite mine when he is doing his homework. If I am not mistaken their is a colour nail varnish which has a bad taste when one bites his nails. This might prevent a child from biting his or her nails. © ronaldinu 2008

its funny the things we do though my kids dont bite their nails,i know people who do and even adults

I don't have that problem myself or in my daughter. However, there are a few ways it could come about as I see it. If the child had longer nails that he or she liked and was nervous, for example. Sometimes, in young children, nails with start to split off on their own. So a child might bite the nail to remove it the rest of the way. This is something to do with their teeth and might be a oral fixation sort of activity which relieves stress for them. Consider, I pinch zits. Zits are annoying. When I get them, I pinch them. When a zit that has been bothering me is popped, it is satisfying. Someone else might have excessive anxiety. If such is the case, popping a zit might not address their cause of anxiety, but it does come with some satisfaction whereby an irritation is removed. Therefore, someone might develop an anxiety-triggered drive to go pinch acne on their face as a dysfunctional way to reliever some of their anxiety. A behavioral glitch is thusly generated.

I also seen this kind of habit with my daughter which is 11 years old at this time and as I remember she have this kind of habit when she is at the age of 9 years old but we always told her that it is not a good habit forming and it would make her nails or finger so nasty as well but Thanks for every time we see her biting we always remind her that it is not a good way ......

My son bites his occasionally. My daughter however has very hard nails like I do. She's is 10 and they were quite long until she took up violin this year in school orchestra. I thought they were going to tell her to cut them, but I didn't want to break the news to her. I think because she loves the violin so much it wasn't ever a issue for her.

no, not really. i havent seen her bite her nails yet. she does this habit of scratching or raking her nails when it's a bit long. she's not used to long nails

my 3 yr old bites her nails i think it started after i took her pacifer away from her when she was 10 months old. she does it now if i paint her nails or she is nervous so i don't paint her nails and i tell her that when she can stopping bitting her nails mommy will take her to a nail salon to get them done. for being nervous i try to take her mind off of what is making her that way with a toy, joke tickles and such. i have heard of people putting hot sauce on thier fingers i think that is crul. when i was young my grandfather told me a story of a man he worked with sucking his thumb and one night my grandfather said the guy sucked his thumb off.

the best thing to do is to give them something to play with their mouth like a artificial nipple i dont know what they call that but my sister did that to her child.

Recently my youngest son has began biting his nails. I think he does it because his dad does it. My husband has always biten his nails. I believe his came from being nervous as a child. My youngest son also has many nervous tendencies and always has since he was very young. I don't do much to stop it other than constantly asking him to stop. I'm not sure there is much we can do other than wait for them to outgrow it and just hope they will.

I never bit my nails when i was kid but my sister's child he is still a small baby just chews his hand , she had this habit done with her elder girl child but as you said now her daughter doesn't have that habit of biting nails , i also heard it from my mom when the child grows their during teeth growing period they feel something happening to their teeth which makes them to bit something , may this be the reason too

My 8 yr old bites her nails and it totally grosses me out. I have just talked to her about it, but she continues to do it. I think that there is something that we could put on their nails that tastes bitter to help them stop, but haven't tried it. None of my other children have ever bit their nails.

I don't have a child really, but I have this problem too. I don't know why I do it but sometimes it is done automatically or something. I mean, I usually bite my nails and it is since I was 9 or 10 years old. In the other hand, I doN't know how to stop it really. Anyway, I am not very annoyed from it, doesn't have lots of effects. Only I just try to keep my right hands nails longer as I like playing guitar with my hand,and nails. Unfortunately, sometimes I bite them without noticing too. It is really a habit that you can't leave easily.

All four of my children bite there nails. I have given up nagging them but do tell them off for biting there nails if they are doing it when I see them or are at the table etc. We did use some awful nail stuff for a while but it didn't really make that much change in them biting there nails. So now I look at it in the way that there could be worse things they could be doing! Hubby is always telling them that they won't have nice nails when they grow up! I know someone who could bite there toe nails as well!!

When i was younger i also bite my nails till i was 8 years old. Then eventually i stop with that habit. Kids sometimes have habits that will change as they grow older. Personally it didnt do anything bad for me. I just love biting my nails for some reason lol. But base on my personal experience that habit will soon change as they grow older so there is nothing for you to worry.