Clothes sucking

[Mar7651]

I am preschool teacher and have a 3 year old who is sucking on his shirt.  Within an hour the shirt is so wet he needs a new one.
I do not mind changing his shirt, but I feel that it is a health problem if this child is spreading his germs all around the classroom, everything he plays with and if he gets sick it would most likely be spread throughout the classroom.  
Any ideas???

[jdtm]

This is one of the behavious of anxiety.  Tiredbuthappy had some excellent suggestions.  One caveat though - often children who suffer from anxiety will replace one soothing behaviour with another so if you stop the chewing/sucking on the clothing, something else (as a favourite toy or sqeeze/stress ball) needs to be substituted.  This little guy is scared and misses his home.  Actually, quite a common situation ....

[ranupc]

When my daughter was like 1 to 3 year old, I would wear dress shirts while working and she would hold the corner up to her nose beside her thumb as she would suck on her thumb. My ex-wife now, made her stop doing it for as she had was a bad habit although se never had any of her own kids. My daughter is now 33, a great mom and she has said a thousand times if her very healthy son did this, she would not stop im. By the way, that ex and I got a divorce when my daughter was 19 and she does not want to ave anything to do with her and would not allow her to ever keep her soon. One reason is because of what she did to her. My collar(her caw caw)was her security blanket.

[margypops]

He may do it if he is bored , what activities do you do with the children are they kept pretty busy I do know children will do all kinds of things like sucking their shirt if the don't have much to do .Unless he is sick I doubt he is spreading germs around the class room .

[tiredbuthappy]

I agree that it sounds like an anxious behavior. if he does it, gently remind him not to do it but without calling a lot of attention to it. You can try a substitution like a stress ball. You can also offer him many sensory activities, incase it is a slight sensory thing. Sensory activities also can help soothe anxiety. Sand, water, play doh, rice table are all great for that. you can also try letting him play in shaving cream. See if you see less sucking behaviors during the day if you start his day off with a sensory activity.

As for a health issue, I wouldn't worry too much about it. His shirt is mostly contained to himself. I wouldn't let him wear shared smocks or dress-up if he is soaked. Unfortunately, at 3, many of the kids are putting lots of things in their mouths.

Also, talk to mom about. Ask if he does this behavior at home. This can give insight if it is due to school-related anxieties. If he does do it at home, ask her how she handles it so that you both send the same message in the same way.

[lrrn3k]

My oldest son was a shirt sucker...he used to suck the long sleeves of his shirts and if they didn't have long sleeves then he would pull the bottom of the shirt up and suck on it. I think that it is a security issue. My son didn't start this behavior until he started school. I'm not sure what the fastest and easiest way to stop this behavior would be, but it took me about 6 months to break my son of this behavior. I just brought it to his attention everytime I caught him doing it and reminded him that he was 1) tearing up his clothes that I paid good money for and that once they were gone he would have to go to school naked (which I would never make him do, but it was a good bluff) and 2) spreading germs that could possibly make others very sick, not to mention the germs he was picking up off his clothes by doing that. I would tell him each and everytime how disgusting it is and how disrespectful it was to treat something someone bought for you that way.

I think that he got tired of being lectured to, but he doesn't chew or suck on his clothes anymore. He was 5 yrs old when he did that and he is now 7 almost 8 yrs old.

Good luck.