Melissa in NC Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 A friend of my daughter told me she likes to bite her lip until it bleeds because she likes the taste of blood. I mentioned this to the mom, who is now acting all pi**y with me. Why would the child, age 12, be doing this? How should I handle this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daisy Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 My first thought is a nutritional deficiency of some sort? At least if my daughter was doing that we'd check for that first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virg Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 :iagree: I have no idea btw if it is true but i would suspect nutritional deficiency, iron perhaps? Or that the child is odd? lol My kids do really weird things sometimes. One used to lick the front of the oven becuase it "warmed his tongue up." :001_huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter's Moon Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 I used to bite the insides of my cheeks until they bled when I was bored or nervous. I stopped at like 10. I still bite the tip of my tongue though. Rarely does it bleed. I don't know why, but I catch myself doing it all the time and it is just like second nature for some reason. I don't like the taste of blood though so I don't know about that part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolphin Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 Could it be the salty taste? Ask her what about it she likes. I would be more worried if she was biting her lip as she liked the pain. I think the blood thing is just under gross things kids do. I used to drink the pickle juice out of the jar, my brother ate his boogers. I would treat it the same as picking her nose. Tell her not to do it, and tell her that it is as bad as eating her boogers, that should gross her out enough. Nicole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sputterduck Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 At 12 I'd wonder if it has anything to do with the insane current popularity of vampires. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2hunangirls Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 I would only be worried if she was doing it for the pain too. In which case she probably would do it in private so the fact that she casually mentions it...it's just a weird habit. I bite my lip too. A nervous, or focus thing maybe??? I don't "like" the taste of blood, but that's sort of my cue to snap out of it. She probably doesn't know why she "likes" it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 You already handled it by pointing it out to the mother. Now there is nothing more to handle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa in NC Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 You already handled it by pointing it out to the mother. Now there is nothing more to handle. Since the child often spends the night at my house, I do need to know how to handle my interaction with her. I can not talk to the mom about this. I am not sure if this is a red flag behavior. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dulcimeramy Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 Since the child often spends the night at my house, I do need to know how to handle my interaction with her. I can not talk to the mom about this. I am not sure if this is a red flag behavior. If you can't talk to the mom, and you decide it is a "red flag behavior," what will you do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 Since the child often spends the night at my house, I do need to know how to handle my interaction with her. I can not talk to the mom about this. I am not sure if this is a red flag behavior. If it's just the one thing and there's nothing else going on then in all likelyhood she's just a little weird as most people are. File it away in case other warnings pop up but really, folks do odd things at times and this is probably just an odd thing that you should not be stressing about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa in NC Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 Since I have an anxiety child, I can watch to see if my dd start to pick up this habit. I can council my dd on picking up bad habits. The other girl does use colorful language that I have had to council my dd that she is not to use. If it is something to worry about, I can discourage this friendship. If it is just an annoying, attention seeking behavior, I can give the girl extra postitive attention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 Since the child often spends the night at my house, I do need to know how to handle my interaction with her. I can not talk to the mom about this. I am not sure if this is a red flag behavior. If what she is doing is not disfiguring, I would give it as LITTLE attention as possible. If she is building up mounds of scar tissue, it becomes very hard not to keep gnawing on it. I have seen several teens with this, so it is not rare, and they were otherwise functional kids. But if it is minor, I'd pass the bean dip. Ready for TMI? When I was a kid, I used to (privately) pick my nose to make it bleed, pull out my lower lip to catch the blood, and then gulp it down. I think it was sort of "oh, look what wild thing I can do with my body". Of course, I'm also the child who walked barefoot over gravel roads to build up heavy callouses and then take my mother's needle and thread and sew my name into the callouses. I used to also swallow string while holding one end and pull it back out to examine the contents of my stomach. I even did it snurfing it in via my nose. I think I was a normal, curious kid. I didn't tell anyone however, and I did dissect animals for fun (fresh road kill). And look where it got me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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