agonyaunt | (no subject)

I am so embarrassed to be writing this question but here it is: Since he was little, my 12-year-old son has picked his nose and eaten his boogers at least a few times a week. It’s a disgusting habit that my husband and I have tried to stop, but nothing works. Our son only does it at home, and I’m quite sure his friends have no idea or else they’d tease him mercilessly.

I don’t know what else to do. We’ve tried gross-flavored nail polish, punishment, grounding, everything, but our son still does it to comfort himself. I guess our only option now is to hope he grows out of it—I’m sure his future wife will hate it. Are there any other options we’re not thinking of? Could this be a sign of something actually wrong with him?

—Snot Cool

Good news/bad news. The good news is that I don’t think this is a sign of anything deeply amiss. You may want to keep an eye out for any other kinds of compulsive behaviors like pulling out hair or picking at skin; taken together, those could be a sign that your child does need some help.

The eating part is rather gross, I’ll grant you, which leads to the bad news: I’m not sure there is much you can do about this whole habit. If he knows not to do it in front of his friends, he will also likely keep it out of sight of a future partner (I hope—at least for the first few years!). You can help those odds by gently interrupting the behavior when you see it and telling him to go to his room or bathroom. You can also have one final conversation, without judgment in your tone of voice, about how unsanitary it is, and hope that that plants some seeds in his head for the future. Ultimately, you might not be able to stop this self-soothing behavior, but with calm consistency you can hopefully modify how he does it.

—Allison

https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/05/talk-children-death-advice.html

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LW has tried punishment, punishment, and punishment, and now Allison is recommending shame, but apparently allergy medication and a saline spray or rinse didn't cross anybody's mind. JFC.

or fidget toys, if it's a boredom/anxiety stim...

Agreed, though if it turns out to not be medical I'd also suggest offering a replacement with a bribe. There's nothing wrong with sticker charts - divide the days into halves, every half a day where no parent sees him picking his nose, he gets a sticker, and after x stickers he gets the prize of his choosing.

It's not inherently shaming to say "hey, you can pick your nose and eat it, but do it in private" any more than it is to say "hey, you can play with your genitals, but do it in private". Granted, given the level of punishment these folks have used, I wouldn't trust them to use a non-shaming tone (JFC, grounding for picking his nose? What are they going to do when he breaks curfew, break his legs?), but teaching "activity X should only be done in these contexts, not those contexts" is part of a parent's job.

Allergy meds seem like overkill if it's only happening a few times a week. Saline might be more helpful, but again, if it's only once every couple days, it might not be worth the trouble, or the kid might rather pick his nose than squirt liquid up it.

If the parents, who have tried grounding him, are catching him at it two or three times a week, I think we can be reasonably certain that he's full of snot and it's happening several times a day. They just don't see it.

Snot is uncomfortable when it hangs around in the nose, especially if it dries up there.

Okay, TMI: I form enough dried snot to need to clean my nose out (not of anything vast, but enough to be visible when I either run a tissue around my nostril or blow my nose in the shower - the steam helps) 2-3 times a week, and I don't have vast quantities of snot. I don't even have enough to run out of my nose, or for me to notice it before it turns into boogers. I do have mild allergies, but I can't take decongestants for being-on-other-meds reasons, and it doesn't really bug me enough for me to take more antihistamines than I already do.

Maybe the kid does produce a lot of snot. Maybe he just produces enough to make boogers every few days. Allergy meds have side effects. Sure, the parents should probably ask if the kid is producing a lot of snot, maybe even take him to an ENT, but I suspect that what they need to focus on is the eating part.

If he's only producing enough to make boogers, enough to pick his nose, twice a week, then it doesn't make sense that his parents are catching him picking his nose twice a week or so. Not with their rather over-the-top reaction.

My dad used to say "do you need a shovel?" but I pick my nose to this day at the age of 52. I do have nasal issues, but sprays don't help as much as you might think.

For our kids, we ask them not to wipe it on the sofa.

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose. But you can't ball up your friends and throw them behind the couch.

It sounds like everything they've been doing has been along the lines of punishing him for the behaviour, instead of rewarding him for not doing it, or finding out why he's doing it.

I have a number of self-soothing habits which my family dislike. They are compulsions, and nothing ever worked to stop them -- except that moving out and being able to control my own environment and body helped considerably. They might consider backing the fuck off and taking a look at themselves and their insistence on punishing their son so that his hypothetical future wife(!!??!) won't quibble with his habits. That's a really super weird motivation on their parts, to my mind.

Were I able to speak to the kid, I'd ask if he feels okay and safe, and if he wants to stop picking his nose. If he does want to stop, but feels he cannot, then something like hypnotherapy might be a place to start. If he would stop but for X, then I would start there.

A 12-year-old is a person who can be talked to and whose opinion matters.

And if he doesn't want to stop, he's not going to stop. He's already stopped doing it in public and in front of friends, and I promise it's not going to do him any harm, everybody eats a ton of their own boogers every day, because your nose drains down your throat.

Work on the "wash your hands after they've been in your mouth" part if you're worried about hygiene. And stop trying to plan his marriage for him. If he marries the girl who doesn't mind him picking his nose he'll know he has the right one.