Chewing and anxiety

[blossbloss]

Hi,

I have a 7 year old DS with diagnoses of ADHD, SPD and anxiety. He has just been referred for an ASD assessment.

I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on how to stop him chewing his fingers please. He is chewing on them when he is anxious which is fairly constant these days and when I finally persuaded him to let me look at them this morning they are in a terrible state with open sores and cuts. It must be very painful for him to hold a pen or cutlery at the moment.

I asked his teacher about a fiddle toy for school but he thought it wouldn't help because it is worse when DS is lining up or in the playground i.e. Away from his desk and classroom. I am loath to try the nail varnish that can be applied to stop children biting their nails as I expect it would provoke a meltdown from him.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks ever so much

Don't bother with the stop n grow nail polish because they soon learn to wash it off.
DS also chews his fingers when anxious, often til they bleed. His OT recommended chewy bracelets and necklaces, chewy tubes and tri-chews. You can get them in different textures and strength. DS loved the tri-chews but the bracelets might be better for you DS as he can wear them so can chew on the go!

We bought ds some dog tag chewy things as he was chewing his fingers until they were constantly sore and bleeding.
His teacher is letting him trial them at school, making sure he doesn't distract anyone, but so far so good! Ds feels he can concentrate better when he's chewing and feels comfortable (the OT calls it oral regulation).

We've found that at school and when he's out and about he chews constantly, at home he doesn't.

Thanks everyone. I will show these links to DS tonight and see which he would like to try.

Bit late to this but I have recently bought a 'chewbuddy' toy via Amazon and it has been brilliant at school- really helped! The one we have is shaped like a stick man.

The bracelets sound a great idea, might get one of those next.