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[quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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