As a lifelong nail-biter, I was never proud of this hard-to-break
habit. It sat in the shadows for me,
until the day I noticed my 2-year-old starting to bite his little nails. The emotions that went through my head when I
first saw my son biting his nails, were ones of horror and
disappointment—disappointment at myself for passing on my very worst habit to
my child.

The
Invisible Habit - I wondered if it would make a difference should I only chew my
nails when my son did not see me? After
all, out of sight is out of mind. So,
every time I saw my son coming, I made sure to not be biting my fingernails. I was sure he did not see me. “Mommy, were you biting your nails?”, he
would ask. I guess he saw me after all! This approach did not work.

Quitting
Cold Turkey – When all else failed, I decided to go cold turkey and quit my
lifelong habit of fingernail biting.
This was not an easy task, but I could not bear to see my little son emulating
my image. I did not want my son to
endure the same lifelong habit. I told
my son that Mommy had stopped biting her nails and he should too. At first he didn’t quite believe I had quit
my habit, and continued biting his nails.
Then…

Two years have passed now, and my son and I have not bitten our
nails since I first grew my fingernails long.
What I have learned from my own trials and tribulations as a parent, is
that I am my child’s best role model. And
to be that all important role model, it means sacrificing and quashing my own
worst habits.
This article was written by me, Jenna Em, and appears in the Wednesday September 12th, 2012 issue of the Kuklamoo blog.
That's awesome that you've both rid the nail biting habit! And you're right, seeing is believing...especially for kids ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks Brandi!
ReplyDeleteWTG! Its super hard to quit bad habits. I have a bad habit of swearing when I get upset. Which is not good. Since Kaelyn has started thinking she should incorporate that into her everday speech. So I have switched from saying a swear word to a random word like ( marbles, shoot etc) In order for her to stop saying it.
ReplyDeleteAmy, good for you! Bad habits are hard to break, but it's terrible to see a child pick up the parent's same bad habit. Wow, hard to believe that it's over 3 years now that I've kicked my lifelong habit of nailbiting--and all because of my son.
DeleteJenna
Good job on breaking your bad habit! I know breaking bad habits are never easy, I am trying really hard to break some bad habits right now.... taking baby steps :)
ReplyDeleteSO great that you both broke this habit! What a testament to how children are affected by our modeling behavior! Congrats, mama :) Glad to have found you through SITS. ~Jenna
ReplyDeleteI loved that your son kept you accountable for your bad habit and that you in turned helped him out with him. That is awesome!
ReplyDelete