Teen pen chewing
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Anonymous
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OP, your daughter is not doing anything unusual. I teach in a high school and maybe half the kids in every of my classes are fidgety and do chew on their pens. The harder the subject eg math, the more pen chewers there are! Peer acceptance happens too! : If they are paired with pen chewers, the non pen chewers will sometimes become pen chewers too. Or it can go the other way around.
As for spit and hygiene. There is absolutely no hygiene! My students chew the shared pens on my desk and the next day another kid will happily chew on it too. There’s spit sometimes in the barrel when I pick up pens left on desks etc and it’s gross. Then are also pen explosions in class like what your daughter went through. Everyone laughs and then moves on. So it’s not like it’s a big deal to the kids. |
Anonymous
| Still find pen chewing icky. My ex was one and she had no boundaries too. Would always chew on my pens too! |
Anonymous
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OP, I come from a family of fidgeters and my feeling, in general, is that everyone has weird habits and that, as long as they aren't harmful or gross, who cares?
But sometimes they are harmful and gross. I have had surprising (to me anyway, surprisingly easy, I should say) success at shifting the habit/urge to something that is less harmful or more socially acceptable. I have never tried to totally eliminate a habit. My mom did with me and siblings and it never worked. I have a fidgety habit and I just learned to hide it or not do it if she was around. But I would describe trying to stop like having an itch and making an effort not to scratch. Yes, you can do it maybe even the whole school day but eventually, when you get nervous or distracted, you give in. Anyway, I have had a lot of success with my kids in replacing or slightly shifting the fidgety habit. I usually go to the sensory-friendly stores for neurodiverse kids and buy a bunch of things. Not that it matters, but my kid with the worst habit (would twirl hair and then yank when falling asleep and had a little bald spot) does not have any diagnosis (other than me diagnosing him with trichotillomania at age 4 or 5). No autism or ADHD, maybe a little anxiety but not at a clinical level. It was almost like a soothing ritual for him. Anyway, I went to an online store and bought a bunch of toys and had him try them and we found one that worked. He is 16 now and over the years, like every 3-4 years, he'll have a little recurrence and I find him some fidget and the behavior shifts. FWIW, the mouthing/biting thing is one of the easiest to figure out because so many people have it and have already sought solutions. (I have one of those too!) I try not to make my kids feel bad about these habits. I do think they are just urges and that they are easier to substitute than eliminate. |
Anonymous
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My daughter 15 chews on all her pens too and like pp, I think every has their own weird habits too. I think my room mates in university were also pen chewers and so did one if the guys I dated. And in my classes, many times I find chewed up pens under the table, in the lecture hall drawers etc. So it’s out there! Pen chewers never goes away. So as long as not very harmful. Why not let it go? Just keep your own stash of pens.
I think she must like the oral feeling of chewing on something when bored. My daughter does it too but does also try to suppress i think when in public and the pen case that she brings to school maybe have a couple of lightly chewed pens but those at home are really chewed flat and caps have been chewed until half the ends are gone! Two years ago too, she used to lick her winter coat collars when they were zipped up to her mouth as it had some kind of flap and material there. After she needed a larger coat, she no longer does it because the material at the collars are different and maybe not so good texture wise for her. But she does chew a little in the hood string tips. So maybe diversion works if it really bothers you OP. |
Anonymous
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We have exactly the same problem, and I really disagree with the people who say you should just ignore the habit. I will explain why.
Our daughter started to chew pens aged 14. We had all the problems you have described. When she turned 16, we decided to put a stop to it. One day we were on a long-distance train, and she was chewing on a pen of course, in full view of other passengers. In my loudest voice I told her to stop chewing pens. There was no more chewing the rest of that journey but later when we got to our hotel she confronted us abusively. Instead of backing down, we stood our ground and made it clear that while she is living under our roof, on our expense, it's our rules. The pen-chewing stopped. We were so happy. For the next two and a half years, she had a pencil case full of pens in perfect condition, and there were no more embarrassments. Then she went to uni in another city where she stayed with my sister-in-law. When she came back at Christmas, we soon realised that the pen-chewing had started again. I was upset, so I called my sister-in-law who just said, "Yeah, she did start chewing pens about a month ago." Sister-in-law told me that we should just allow our daughter to chew pens. So we took that advice. Big mistake. Fast forward three years. Daughter, now 21, got a job at reception of a local company. I often walk past there and did not seen her at reception a few times. I told her that I kept seeing another girl at reception, and my daughter said, "I have more than one role." A few days later one of my daughter's co-workers came to visit and happened to reveal the truth. Our daughter has been removed from front of house for sitting at reception chewing on pens and spitting out the plastic, which was not a good look when clients were sitting in reception waiting to be seen. She had been offered support to stop, but had continued the chewing, so she is now being trained in a back office role. Recently on a weekend drive we stopped to look at an old country church. We signed the visitor book and then the minister himself came in and chatted with us. While the minister told us about the history of the building, our 21-year-old daughter stood chewing the pen from his visitor book, noisily. I felt so embarrassed, and so powerless to tell her to stop. When the minister turned round to take us to some other features of his church, I signalled to daughter to return the pen, and she placed the wet pen, with her teeth marks in it, back on the visitor book. My point is that when our daughter was 16, we got her to stop pen-chewing with a bit of tough parenting. For over 2 years we had no chewed pens, no plastic fragments on carpets. Then she went back to chewing when she went to stay with my sister-in-law who believed our daughter's pen-chewing is some sort of right. Now, at the age of 21, the pen-chewing is clashing with her job and with every aspect of adult life, and it might be too late to stop it, all because my sister-in-law was so soft. We would love to still stop her if we can. Have you found any way of at least helping your daughter to be self-aware about when she is chewing, so that she doesn't chew pens in public? If you have advice on that, let me know. We feel we can't shout at our daughter now because she's 21. She should never have been allowed to go back to pen-chewing when she was 18. |
Anonymous
Same! I moved from one chewing to twirling. People ask me how I do it. Lol! |