My three-year-old daughter fiddles with her belly button. She has been doing it since she was two and a half. It would happen randomly?she would reach for her navel, just casually poking around, while she was getting dressed, playing or chatting. While it?s not quite as gross as, say, nose picking or hair chewing, I began to worry that it was becoming a habit and some kind of response to stress or discomfort.
Turns out, there?s no shortage of other bothersome self-soothing habits among toddlers and young kids. Thumb sucking and nail biting are biggies, of course, along with skin picking, hair pulling, teeth grinding and chewing on just about anything.
So, what?s going on"
Most of the time, these repetitive behaviours are a perfectly normal developmental phase and arise from a need to self-regulate. ?They?re very common because kids at this age don?t understand what emotions are and try to do anything they can to soothe themselves,? says Jennifer Kolari, a child and family therapist and author of Connected Parenting: How to Raise a Great Kid. Sometimes it?s obvious why a child might have picked up a new self-soothing technique. Looking back at my daughter?s belly button quirk, I realized that it began around the same time that she started potty training and transitioning to a new preschool room at daycare. Though she didn?t seem stressed by either event, it?s possible that this helped her deal with these new situations.
The origin of a particular habit itself may also ...