To take DS to GP for eating headphone cables

[Pardalis]

His headphones used for gaming have been getting ropey looking. Always put it down to the fact he doesn't look after them - dropped on the floor, twisted, chair trapping them. I have always said that if they break due to misuse then I wasn't going to replace.
I noticed tonight how bad they were. Due to the long cord it wasn't always obvious.
Turns out he's eaten them. In places the whole of the black plastic covering has gone. Some of the inner and even the copper. And some weird fibre stuff.
He's said he swallowed it.
I got really upset, told him that he shouldn't eat it and why. He got upset in return and obviously headphones have been taken away.

My first instinct is to book a GP appointment to find out whether eating that has harmed him.

He's fine at the moment. Am I overreacting?

In the old days everyone used to chew on their pens and pencils. I still do. Even if I'm doing stuff on the computer I'll have a pen to chew. I don't have sensory issues although I guess there's an underlying reason or at least habit there.

From the thread title I thought you were going to drop him off at grandparents as he'd eaten your headphone cables and you were annoyed!

Just me that threatens to take DD to inlaws then.....?

He’ll be fine.

I have two chewers, nails, pencils, felt tips...I was exactly the same as a kid.

I got the pendant for dd but it didn’t really work. She has a worry stone now for when she feels like biting her nails but she loses it...

Love the comment about get him a stick!
Dd is 8 and dd is 6 and they love a game of minecraft. They also love playing in the garden, make believe games, going out walks etc etc. It’s not like our dc are gaming all day!

My son was also a premie and he has infant reflexes which have not gone dormant - the need to chew like babies do can be a sign. I'm not recommending this company as i have never used them - but worth doing their survey to see if your son's infant reflexes have not gone dormant. www.inpp.org.uk/child-screening-questionnaire/

@ittakes2 thanks for sharing that link. It's really interesting.

My youngest who is 9 and autistic is a chewer and keen on headphone cables :) chewing bangles and necklaces have worked really well for her. In school she wears bracelets that she can fiddle with and chew. We agreed it with the school senco but a word with his teacher might be enough.

DSS10 likes to tie headphone cables into many knots and also to chew on them, despite being told not to.
I've bought him a few pairs over the years but he only seems to have one crappy pair with the solid plastic earbuds now. I've given up buying them because he just loses them, destroys them or leaves them at his mums.
He also chews his fingernails and his fingers.

People on Mumsnet are such dickheads, honestly. Children play games. Adults play games. They're a perfectly acceptable pastime if balanced with other activities and are beneficial in many ways.

HTH.

OP - get him a Chewigem.

I am more concerned your 6yr old is 'gaming' alone somewhere for any period of time that you haven't noticed the chewing the risks of online gaming far outweigh the risks of whatever he has chewed

I’d be more concerned about what headphone use can do to your hearing. Take it from someone whose job involves wearing headphones: long-term use brings hearing loss.

Eastmids loads of other people have already said that. Clearly you didn't bother to RTFT and commented just to pass ridiculous judgement after only reading the OP.

Eastmids - Pray do tell what your concerns are about a 6 year old gaming alone.

Minecraft is a great game for young kids. Think Lego but on a huge scale! You can build endlessly. And it can be played entirely offline so no need for constant supervision. It's great for imagination and learning.

When people who don't know anything about gaming talk about gaming, it's very obvious.

Anyway, not that it's much help but my cat eats cables all the time and nothing has befallen her

I agree, Minecraft is a great game!

Nowhere does the OP mention leaving her child unsupervised for long periods of time online gaming. What's with all the judgy comments?

I have a chewer - he's dyspraxic and has ADHD so it's a sensory thing for him. Mostly it's his bloody sleeves. Chewigem stuff is good and school are fine about it.

Hes obviously quite an anxious kid, some of us are. Let him bite his nails so that he doesnt divert to other things. He'll adjust.

I AM the reason that crayons were banned in my primary school, the crayons always disappeared fast in my class when I was small, first 3 years of school till the teacher copped on if I was off sick the crayons collection for the whole classroom didn't need to be topped up, so watch and wait started and to her absolute horror, the teacher watched from a distance as I shoved 2 crayons into my mouth and ate them as I coloured

So don't worry too much, I was concentrating a lot and this was part of it,

My 6yr old is the same, when he is on his tablet he chews. It's usually his top but has been known to chew the cables on the headphones. When I removed his top to try and stop him ruining anymore he started on his arm . I'm going to look into the chew things suggested on this thread.

Your six year old has stripped those headphones. How? You need to be a bit more attentive. I wouldn’t take him to the doctor until you suspect pics but I don’t actually understand how that can have got that bad without you noticing.

I was a chewer. Adhd and ASC so sensory issues. Worth a mention to the GP for evidence in case of future issues in my opinion.

I wouldn't panic about it, seems he's chewed a lot over time. However he wouldn't get anymore headphones from me unless he promised never to chew again and I'd regularly inspect them even then.

We all miss things, even when we’re paying close attention we can just be paying attention to the wrong things... like the screen, not to the results of the wire in the mouth!

It’s one of those things, and easy to do especially if you’re familiar with the sight of the child with the wire in his mouth and think you know that it’s harmless twiddling and sucking, not stripping down to eating the copper wiring itself, which is really extreme and unexpected behaviour.

We’ve all missed things that in hindsight are obvious. But it’s all ok in the end because they are near misses that we do pick up on, just later than we’d have wanted in the general hubbub of daily life.

Parents are human, and berating her afterwards is just pointless, except for making that poster feel superior and smug about being Such A Better Parent and generally an All Round Superior Personage. So yay for you and your lack of ability to imagine ever missing something that’s ultimately pretty harmless like this.

Moving on... great idea to get some of those chewable necklaces etc, hopefully that will solve your DS’s urge to chew. I chewed (& crushed!) the last couple of inches of pencils and pens growing up, chewed paper and also bit my nails and nope, that brush on nail deterrent didn’t work for me either! As an aside our gorgeous dog couldn’t stop biting his stitches either after he got a wound on his hind leg ... the vet told us to put Tabasco on it which dear Boris stoically licked through, sneezing every so often, but utterly undeterred! We had to have his stitches redone three times and he ended up wearing one of those terrible plastic dome collars for 6 months in the end Poor dog just couldn’t resist the urge. I still have a lot of sympathy with him! I suspect your ds would have some fellow feeling too ... but on the up side, your ds will grow up and grow out of most of it :)

Btw I was just trying to find some good gaming headphones for DS (8), who’s utterly in love with Minecraft ... i can’t find any that mention children’s more sensitive hearing and DS tends to keep turning them up if there’s not a built in way of curbing that!

smurfy your teeth must have been a wonderful sight! Particularly the insides...

Thanks everyone. And I knew someone would have a pop at me about my parenting skills. It's de rigeur after all on here!!! It's worth it to have gotten the advice.

Interesting to know it might be a hangover from his early birth. Anyway, I have ordered a chewable Minecraft pendant and a bracelet and we'll see how it goes