How do I keep a 9 year old from constantly licking erasers and putting them in his mouth
from howler@lemmy.zip to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 25 Sep 12:02
https://lemmy.zip/post/49527724
from howler@lemmy.zip to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 25 Sep 12:02
https://lemmy.zip/post/49527724
I can’t take away the eraser or give it to him only when he asks, because I have more students.
He’s impulsive but nice. His parents know he does stuff like that.
Any ideas?
#nostupidquestions
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Why do you want that? Is there some inobvious harm in chewing erasers? Or money is the main problem? Let him chew his own erasers then.
Other kids have to use them.
Communal erasers? Are they extremely expensive in some countries?
If this is in the U.S., teachers typically have to buy their own supplies on meager salaries. Watching one kid literally eat those supplies must be pretty demoralizing.
He’s not chewing them. He’s putting them in his mouth whole. I don’t think he’ll choke, but other people want to use the eraser too. Yes I paid for them myself, as someone else guessed in the other answers.
Understood. This was the inobvious nuance to me. In my culture we expect pupils to have their own writing tools, paper, etc.
Something similar to the spray they use on animals after a surgery? It’s safe for consumption but it tastes god-awful to stop the animal licking the wound.
Some pharmacies sell a bitter liquid (no idea how it’s called) intended to to put on children’s fingernails to prevent nail baiting. I guess this would also work on erasers.
I had this, it was called Stop n Grow
I eventually got used to and, even liked the taste
Yeah… I discovered I could file the upper layer of my nail to remove the polish. Guess how my nails ended up.
I had a bitterant put on my hands and now I just like bitter flavors lol
Talk to parents, get their written approval to put bitter apple spray on the erasers.
Agreed, putting something repulsive is the key here. This kind of strategy is used for nail biters as well.
My mom used to threaten me with hot sauce, but I love hot sauce.
That only works for so long. My mom got special nail varnish from the doctors that was supposed to stop me chewing my nails. Properly vile rotten stuff.
I ended up developing a taste for it.
Me too lol
That stuff typically only works if you want to stop.
Ooooooh very nice idea!!! Thank you!!!
If the parents don’t support you, and you can eliminate the existence of mental issues that require treatment or special attention for chewie, and you can’t use a spray solution, I would go for gentle peer pressure. Point it out in class, do a friendly dressing down how none of the other students want to use the chewed on eraser. If he won’t stop if you say so, maybe you can get other kids to do the trick. The unwanted public attention from his peers might be enough. Would your principal be up for a bad cop routine where you can be the good cop?
I understand why you’d go there when it sounds like other options have been exhausted, but I don’t think it would be a good idea. Seems like calling the kid out like this would only open up opportunities for bullying, without doing anything to address the source of the issue.
I want to highlight again that this suggestion was preceded by a lengthy checklist.
I think you and I have a different idea of what bullying is. I remember kids picking their nose in class and eating it in elementary school. I don’t think it took an intervention from the teacher to get that to stop. Just some kids going “ewww, that’s disgusting” got the message across. This is how society corrects behavior. I wasn’t suggesting a teacher goes before class, does a Nelson Ha-Ha, “look at that loser, go beat him later and take his lunch money.” Just something like “Kevin, the other kids need to use this eraser as well and they don’t like it full of spit. Please don’t chew on it. Thanks.” It signals to the kids this is not okay and I don’t think they will go full Lord of the Flies on him - keeping in mind the preconditions I had outlined above.
I read your checklist, and I think you missed the bit where I said “when it sounds like all other options have been exhausted”. There’s absolutely no need for the “peer pressure” component, it’s unnecessary to call out a kid on front of a class like that when you could just as easily have a private conversation with the kid about it, and I suggest you think about what it means to enable bullying without actively participating in it.
You have no way of accurately predicting this, because it’s children we’re talking about, and they are famously agents of chaos.
I can’t think of a single office I’ve worked where it would be considered professional to call someone out for minorly problematic behaviour in front of all their colleagues, and I don’t see any reason it would be considered acceptable with children either.
It’s an enumeration of if-phrases. “If the parents don’t support the teacher” is just the first condition of many. And some things you may have to infer, like if the teacher had to talk to the parents and got cold shouldered, I think you can presume the teacher has already talked to the student too. I’m not gonna go as far as saying my post was immaculately written and presented. I would go as far as saying the options presented were at the bottom of the list. No support from the parents, maybe not even school leadership, cannot use bitter taste spray for insurance reasons, etc.
If a teacher telling a kid to get their feet off the table, to stop shooting spit wads at the row in front of them, to stop rocking back their chair because they might tip over and fall - if all these situations are okay for a teacher to say out loud in front of the class: “Kevin, stop it!” - and I think they are - then telling the kid not to chew on communally shared erasers is no different. Claiming this will immediately lead to bullying or just the threat that it might do is to an extent quixotic to me. If teachers will not assert their authority ever for fear of what the chaos kids will do, they might as well pack it in then.
Your office comparisons are insignificant here. Elementary school is a different sport entirely. There is a difference between coworkers sharing an office hierarchy and the power, responsibility, and maturity differential students/teacher, never mind the fact that offices shouldn’t employ 9yos.
OP has weighed in against the suggestion anyway. I’ll defer to them because they know more about this case than you or I.
Followed by
Really? School is where we learn how to treat other people, and we learn it by example as much as being told (more than, I’d contend).
First off, quote where I claimed it would immediately lead to bullying (good luck). Secondly, yes, whether believe it or not a teacher engaging in this behaviour signals to the other children that it’s okay, there’s an extremely elevated chance that they will take that and run with it.
Telling, yes. They’ve already told them to stop it. Your suggestion, however, was
“peer pressure”, “dressing-down”, “maybe you can get other kids to do the trick”. That last one in particular. How exactly do you think the other kids would do the trick? Harass the child into stopping, yeah? Or are you gonna come out now claiming that kids are masters of nuance and they’ll be able to get him to stop without resorting to bullying? Your initial suggestion was bad, but at this point you are being absolutely ridiculous. OP “weighed in against the suggestion” with the words
And yet you still want to act like I’m in the wrong for saying that it would open the child up to bullying. An absolutely mind-blowingly dumb argument. I sure hope you’re not responsible for children with this kind of thinking; I had a few teachers like you and I hated them for it.
My word choices have given you the impression of a scheming Machiavellian teacher who reenacts the Spanish Inquisition on the boy until his classmates pelt him to death with rotten eggs. That’s on me, it’s not what I meant. I think I’ve added enough clarification in this thread at this point. So I won’t go into it again.
The opinion of one teacher, one that due to the question they asked initially and the forum they asked it in, and a few down votes are, I feel, not enough to call my argument dumb. Never mind the more personal attack that followed. Tackle the ball, not the player. If you want me to change my mind, that is.
There is a whole field of study for this, pedagogy. I am sure the first chapter of the book isn’t “kids are ruthless. The end.” I remain unconvinced that my approach, where my suggestion was preconditioned on many things to have happened first, is the worst one until I hear something that isn’t that or teetering on the edge of name calling.
Seems like a great way to get your own private eraser!
They sell stuff called Chewelry; it’s a necklace or wristband you can chomp on.
Maybe get the kid one of those? If not, maybe make one out of a piece of string and eraser?
This one’s for chewin’, this one’s for undoin’.
This is something the parents should do - along being in the driver’s seat of correcting this behavior in their 9yo. In times of teachers crowd funding classroom supplies, I don’t think it’s fair to suggest “throw money at it” to a teacher. It’s not going to cost $5 just once and that’s it. If you have to beg for boardmarkers in general, this will be a line item that matters.
Talked to the parents because this kid is known for doing weird/illogical stuff. They say that they know that something is not right and that they are trying to figure out what it is.
So till we know if the student has an issue or of he’s simply the Herald of Chaos, I will keep coating the pencils with bitter stuff.
Also, yes I have to beg for board markers and all the materials in my class have been paid by me, and I’d like them to last.
Peer pressure would be a disaster. Kids are vicious creatures when they have the chance, and I know that several of his classmates are certified brats with a taste for blood.
In summary: you have the cooperation of the parents, you cannot exclude the existence of a mental issues, and you are allowed to spray the item then. These are conditions I put ahead of any other suggestion.
Sounds like it could be a stim thing - impulsive, you say? Any chance there’s (undiagnosed?) ASD there? The mentions of bitter spray reminded me of when my mother tried that to get me to stop biting my nails. I just stopped using my lips and tongue, and only used my teeth…
Anyway, if it’s a stimulation thing, maybe finding an alternative would be easier than getting him to stop entirely.
1,000,000% this
duckduckgo.com/?q=sensory+chew+necklace&ia=shoppi…
Yeah, this is exactly what I was thinking, too. You redirect the behavior somewhere safe while still fulfilling the essential need.
I’ll find something else too, then. I don’t want to harm him
I’d be curious for a follow-up post if you find a way to help him with this! I was this kid when I was little, and needed help and kindness, but there was no understanding for autistic behaviours back then so what I got instead was bullied. I appreciate that you went looking for help instead of just throwing up your hands 🤗
I’ll update you!!
Hi! So I suggested nail chewing deterrent to the boss, checked that the kids have no allergies, bought the deterrent in a pharmacy and coated all the pencils and part of one eraser (they stop working with the polish).
All it took was one lick (and OMG their faces), they didn’t put the pencils/eraser near their mouth again. I hope they remember the lesson next week lol. I coated all pencils so the kid I wrote the post about wouldn’t get targeted.
I watched the kid that has me particularly worried and he didn’t show interest in putting anything else in his mouth, nor did he have a change in attitude. Now that he isn’t licking stuff, he is somewhat more focused in class?? I have to keep watching.
If they are the school’s I would simply not give them to that student anymore, for very obvious reasons that every 9yo should understand. Let him use his own.
Is the act itself disturbing the class or his own ability to concentrate? If not, I do not see any further problem.
Haven’t we all chewed on pencils to concentrate?
Well, yes, it interrupts the class because every few minutes I have to stop him. The other lemmings have given me some great ideas
Roundhouse kick that kid to the moon.
Wait for a couple years. He will stop doing it eventually.
Do like my ol’ dad did make him smoke a whole pack. It’ll put him off forever.
“you can put that eraser in your mouth as much as you want, but first you have to eat this pallet of erasers from the supply storage”
Don’t bother trying. It isn’t going to hurt the kid.
It can easily be a chocking hazard, it’s unsanitary, and it can cause the child to be ostracized by peers which can limit their social development.
Is eating erasers going to get you more ostracized than constant nagging from the teacher to not eat erasers?
Personally still going to put the blame there on eraser eater, but the whole point of this post was to find something that actually works to curb the behavior
It doesn’t sound like they’re necessarily his erasers though
They are not
Give him a piece of gum?
Did the parents take Tylenol? Equip him with erasers.
Don’t all children do that?
I used to shew on everything, my friend used to literally destroy pens by shewing them too much. I think it’s normal.
Could be just a bad habit as you say. Boredom. Might be worth checking to see of some kids have any other issues that might put them on an au/dhd spectrum. One of ours habitually destroyed pencils and erasers no matter what we did. Found out later It was anxiety and stress from undiagnosed neurospicyness.
Yeah… Parents noticed something wrong too and he’s being checked.
I have things for students of all ages that for whatever reason need to destroy stuff, and they know I’ll give them the item they prefer no questions asked (but I’m always there to listen to them). Before I figured out why those students were behaving the way they were, lessons were miserable.
One day I offered a girl a tray of used paper sheets to shred instead of the textbook and it changed my life lmaoo
This kid is not destructive, so my usual tactics don’t work. The bitter spray did, tho.
Well, there is stuff you paint on kids nails to prevent them from biting them, which basically tastes bitter. Maybe apply this to the eraser?
Maybe get connected to this guy
lemmy.world/post/36431596
Long shot but it could be a sign of iron deficiency. Eating, smelling and licking odd things like paper, erasers, I’ve heard of these associations. I even read about a woman who would spend her lunch hour smelling the concrete in the stairwell. Turned out to be iron deficiency.
Chewing ice as well, supposedly it is motivated by iron deficiency.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(disorder)?wprov=sfla1
Maybe a vitamin b or magnesium deficiency?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(disorder)
Make him write in pen?
Give him gum to chew instead?
Cover them in spicy
Kick in the nuts will do.