Why My Child Chews on Pencils and Sucks on Clothing?

This post contains information regarding oral sensitivities and oral defensiveness. Affiliate links are included for your convenience.

If you have a child who is constantly sucking on their shirts or clothing, chews on their pencils at school, enjoys extreme flavors of foods, or is constantly chewing on their toys, it could be a sign that their sensory receptors are in need of that tactile sensation in their mouth and are using it as a defense mechanism. Depending on your child, the sensory receptors in their mouth can either be hypersensitive (too sensitive) to textures and foods or they can be hyposensitive (needs more tactile sensations).

Tactile Defensiveness: Why My Child Hates Hugs, Tags and is in Constant Fight or Flight Mode

This article provides helpful information for children that struggle with tactile defensiveness. Affiliate links are included for your convenience.

The word tactile refers to our sense of touch and to the information our body gets from our skin. Our sense of touch is important for helping us understand our own body, our surroundings and environment. Touch is also the link between people. Through touch comes bonding and relationships. Tactile sensations are sent between mother and child as soon as the infant is born, especially when the baby is feeding.

To better understand your child’s tactile system and how it relates to learning, here are a few things to consider:

• Some of the tactile receptors are close to the surface of the skin and others are deep.
• Light Touch sends a signal message to the brain, which usually means, “Pay attention!” This is a useful sensation to create awareness while increasing your child’s focus on what is going on around them.
• Touch Pressure sensation occurs when someone firmly touches your skin. Most people find comfort in touch pressure input (massages, deep pressure therapy, foam rollers).
• Highly sensitive areas on the body including the fingertips, tongue and lips can have as many as 100 pressure receptors in one cubic centimeter.
• Less sensitive areas, like your back, have as few as 10 pressure receptors in a cubic centimeter.

Lack of Sleep Makes Anxious Kids Worse. How to Help!

Is Lack of Sleep Making Your Anxious Kids Worse?

Almost every anxious child has sleep issues. This is not a freaky coincidence. Child anxiety and sleep deprivation are best buddies. They feed off of each other. They like to snuggle up and keep each other warm. Sleep deprivation wreaks havoc on most children’s mood, but it can make anxious kids implode!

It is a vicious cycle that gains momentum as time goes by. Worries keeps anxious kids up. It keeps them checking under their beds and staring at dark shadows. It keeps them obsessing over worries. It keeps them hyper vigilant and pumped full of adrenaline.

Feeding Picky Kids

Parents of young children commonly commiserate about their kids’ eating habits. Complaints often relate to a child’s exceedingly limited “kid food” diet, rejection of anything green, refusal to try anything new or the explosive mealtime battles that make dinnertime stressful for everyone.