If there’s one thing kids seem to enjoy doing all the time, it’s touching their face, whether it’s sticking a finger in their nose to rubbing their eyes. To help slow down the spread of COVID-19, experts discourage touching your face since the coronavirus can spread through viral droplets that enter the body through the eyes, nose, and mouth. Unfortunately, this is a hard thing to accomplish with young kids, but here are some tips you can try to help her kick her face-touching habit.
Point out whenever she touches her face
To help your child be more aware of her face-touching, point out to her every time she does it. Sanam Hafeez, a psychologist, tells HuffPost that by making your child conscious of this habit, “eventually it becomes a conditioned response where they will find themselves removing their hands from their faces.”
Apply positive reinforcement
Recognizing the efforts your child makes to stop touching her face so often can go a long way. As a previous SmartParenting.com.ph article writes, positive reinforcement can encourage a child to continue making the effort and working hard to get the result she wants — which, in this case, is to stop touching her face.
Tell her why she shouldn’t touch her face
Explaining how touching your face can spread COVID-19 in an age-appropriate way to older kids can make them more invested in avoiding their face-touching habit and shows them a simple thing they can do to help avoid spreading the disease.
What other parents are reading
Give her something else to do
Looking for activities for your child to do at home is not just a way to make sure that she’s entertained and learning; it can help her beat her face-touching habit as well. Cognitive scientist Denise Cummins suggests giving your child something to hold or fiddle with, like a toy. “It is always better to try to replace a problematic behavior with another behavior rather than asking children to NOT do something,” she tells HuffPost.
Keep her hair out of her face
According to Parents, stray hairs that get in your child’s face may be one major reason why she can’t stop touching her face. To solve this, make sure to keep her hair trimmed with pins or hair ties or tied up.
Teach her how to keep her hands clean
Whenever your child needs to blow her nose or scratch an itch, give her a piece of tissue to minimize skin contact. Pediatrician Jennifer Shu tells Parents that encouraging her to wash and sanitize her hands often is also a must, so you know that even if she does touch her face sometimes, her hands stay clean.
What other parents are reading
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
