Please help.
Dd is just 5 and in reception. She has over the years had some anxiety related habits and tics such as headshaking, shoulder shrugging and a period of hairpulling. The GP adviced us to ignore as much as possible. The tics she still has, but the hairpulling has been replaced by picking/biting of her fingernails and the skin surrounding it. She makes her fingers bleed on a daily basis.
Dd's teacher wants to know how to deal with this. She cannot ignore it as dd would bleed all over the books/papers/desks/toys etc. But neither does she want to go all-out 'oh dear, come and have a plaster'.
She has asked dd if anything is worrying her and dd said 'no'. But dd did burst into tears today when another girl snatched a pen. The teacher said dd was disproportionately upset about this.
Now, dd is a bundle of anxieties which we are trying to deal with as much as possible. I think the nailbiting thing is almost done subconciously.
When asked by the teacher why dd bites her nails/skin dd replied 'I don't know' That is the exact same answer we get when we ask her. Followed by a shrug, a pout and a point blank refusal to discuss further.
So, what can we do? The teacher is thinking about implementing an award system, ie a sticker for every day when nails were not bitten. But then she is worried this would draw attention to the problem, and perhaps I want to downplay it so as not to reward dd with attention when she bites/nibbles/
Please please, anyone who has advice, been though something similar with their child, let me know how you dealt with this.
I don't want to turn this into a huge issue, but some coping/dealing strategies would be wonderful as I am feeling a bit at a loss at the moment.