Weird behavior of the week
Lately J-Man has been trying to stick small objects, particularly little bits of food, into his ears or up his nose. Normally this involves small bits or crumbs of chicken nuggets or toast. I don’t think he’s ever tried to stick anything sharp up there.
Let me just say that pulling a little fragment of chicken nugget out of your kid’s nostril is an experience better left unshared.
Anybody see this in their kid? This came out of nowhere and has stumped us. He doesn’t seem to have an ear problems and he doesn’t otherwise pick at his ears.
Anyone have any insight into this?
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E. hasn’t done this, but I’ve definitely heard of other kids who have. Maybe a sensory thing?
I talked to one of his therapists today, and she basically said not to worry. This is pretty much a quote: “He’s discovering that he has holes.” That’s just not a sentence normally uttered in the English (or any other) language.
She said that as long as stuff doesn’t get up in there and cause some sort of infection, it’s not worth worrying about. Given how quick he is sometimes, losing stuff up in some orifice in his skull is plenty in itself to worry about.
I agree with you though that it could easily be a sensory thing. He comes up with unique ways to deal with his sensory needs so maybe this is one of them.
I kind of miss the pushing around the downstairs of the heavy, pine, kitchen table and the accompanying six chairs that he used to do. At least when he was doing all that “heavy work” for his sensory stuff, I could see what he was doing. Wondering about the fate of little food bits is something else entirely.
It’s a kid thing in general. I shoved magnets up my nose when I was about three, just to see what would happen. It’s a sensory/curiosity thing. Some kids do it, some don’t, whether on the spectrum or not.
My main curiosity has been that this is part of that continuing evolution of his sensory-seeking behaviors. The value in figuring that out has been that we can focus on related sensory issues in therapy. It’s worked well so far.
He used to gnaw his t-shirts while in his bed until they were soaked through (wringing wet); he used to intentionally gag himself using his fingers; he used to crawl around rubbing his head on the carpet, etc.
What’s been weird about all this is that he does one for a while, stops, and then rarely does it ever again; then he moves on to the next thing he comes up with. He’s quite good at figuring out what he needs to feel better, odd as those things may be.
The REALLY annoying ones are when he ground his teeth constantly (think fingernails on blackboards - which he thankfully does only rarely now) and when he chomps down with nothing in his mouth just to bang his teeth together. He’s still doing the latter off and on. Blech.
We have to go in for his physical tomorrow (preschool paperwork) so we’ll have the doc look in his ears to see if any food is still living in there. We have a sinking feeling something is up there…
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