8 year old constantly chewing

[susan198130]

My son is 8 years old and for the past few years, he's developed this habit of chewing, mainly his clothes. He's ruined so many clothes. He chews the neck of his jumpers, the sleeves, he chews blankets, towels, flannels, he chews his duvet cover, basically any material. He chewed his jumper in school a while back and it was so wet that his teacher had to put a spare jumper on him.

At bed time, we decided not to put a top on him because he will just chew it and it will be soaking, but he will suck his arm instead. He now has bruises on his arm from this.

I think it is more a habit/comfort thing rather than an anxiety related thing. He isn't an anxious child, so it doesn't seem to be something he does when he's worried or nervous. I don't think he even realises he's doing it most of the time. Does anyone have any advice on how we can try and tackle this and get him to stop?

[Smiths52]

My son is exactly the same! He is also 8 and he constantly chews. There are holes around his collar, holes in blankets, basically if he can chew it he will. I have no idea why! Maybe an age thing?

[Stonebridge]

You can get chewy pendants for just this purpose - redirects the chewing to something that is more robust while still giving them the option to chew which may be comforting to them www.sensationalkids.ie/product/combat-chewy-dog-tag/

[SallyLongDitton]

I was really interested to find this post as my eight year old son is also chewing his clothes. It’s been going on since he moved schools 2.5 years ago (I originally put it down to anxiety/comfort) but it seems to have got worse in the last six months. He’s chewed the cuffs on all his jumpers, his coat(!) and having bought him a brand new pair of pjs at the weekend, he’s already bitten through the collar in 3 separate places - I am at my wits end! He’s very happy at school but I wonder if Covid (& all the associated impacts on his life this year) is proving an underlying source of anxiety to him.

Anyway, I’m very curious to know if your son has got any better and whether you have any tips you can pass on as I see your post was from six months ago! Keeping my fingers firmly crossed....