Do anyone else's children have any little habitual tics? My 5 year old dd started licking her hands over a year ago and while we didn't want to make a big deal of it she was doing it so often we felt we had do something, so we explained about germs and kept asking her to wash her hands when she did it. It did get better but she still does it, just licks the ends of her fingers instead, and always does both hands. She is also coughing and clearing her throat all the time at the moment. She doesn't have a cold, and we think it's more of a habitual thing. Again we haven't wanted to make a big deal of it but it's becoming a problem - for example when she reads her school reading book she coughs every couple of lines. We are a bit worried she will damage her throat, as well as irritate everyone around her! Otherwise she is a very happy well-adjusted 5 year old. I just wondered if anyone else had experience of these kinds of tics and whether they just go away on their own or whether we should do anything to encourage her to stop. Obviously they're not particularly big issues, I just don't want her to develop any OCD type behaviour.