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Seems like something simple that one could have asked a doctor.. "My kid keeps licking their hands.. any ideas?" Also even though the article the mother seems

Seems like something simple that one could have asked a doctor.. "My kid keeps licking their hands.. any ideas?" Also even though the article the mother seems to think that they have gotten to root cause.. there may be more of a cause. Dry hands is often because of the compulsive action of washing ones hands too much. So now there are 2 compulsions washing hands and licking hands to keep them dry.. By replacing licking hands with moisturizer you will still have 2 compulsions.. cleaning hands and moisturizing too much.. A 2 second google search will also bring up thousands of pages about kids licking hands.

jerkstate 8y ago
I took the article as more metaphorical than immediately practical. Not every behavior has an easily-googleable answer.
beaconstudios 8y ago
or ask the kid why they're licking their hands as the first step, then when they say their hands are dry solve that problem. If this doesn't cause the dry hands to peter out as the vicious cycle is interrupted, then see a doctor about your kid's excessively dry hands.
hogger 8y ago
Medicalising things doesn’t always have the desired outcome. I’m guessing that medication and therapists would have been the result. The google hits (in a quick skim) are all ADD and autism type stories although adding ‘dry’ gets this HN thread, so that’s good.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
A 2 second google search will also bring up thousands of pages about kids licking hands. Google did not exist 24 years ago when my now 31 year old son was 7 years old. The company was founded Sep 04, 1998, just over 20 years ago. Note to self: Work on more clearly signalling context and time frame to my readers. Also even though the article the mother seems to think that they have gotten to root cause.. there may be more of a cause. The article mentions in brief that he has health issues. He got a proper diagnosis a few years later when he was fourteen. That helped enormously with a long list of complicated issues. So his hand licking was likely rooted at least in part in the fact that he has a condition that significantly impacts his epithelial tissues, which includes but is not limited to skin.

jerkstate 8y ago

I took the article as more metaphorical than immediately practical. Not every behavior has an easily-googleable answer.

beaconstudios 8y ago

or ask the kid why they're licking their hands as the first step, then when they say their hands are dry solve that problem. If this doesn't cause the dry hands to peter out as the vicious cycle is interrupted, then see a doctor about your kid's excessively dry hands.

hogger 8y ago

Medicalising things doesn’t always have the desired outcome. I’m guessing that medication and therapists would have been the result. The google hits (in a quick skim) are all ADD and autism type stories although adding ‘dry’ gets this HN thread, so that’s good.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

A 2 second google search will also bring up thousands of pages about kids licking hands. Google did not exist 24 years ago when my now 31 year old son was 7 years old. The company was founded Sep 04, 1998, just over 20 years ago. Note to self: Work on more clearly signalling context and time frame to my readers. Also even though the article the mother seems to think that they have gotten to root cause.. there may be more of a cause. The article mentions in brief that he has health issues. He got a proper diagnosis a few years later when he was fourteen. That helped enormously with a long list of complicated issues. So his hand licking was likely rooted at least in part in the fact that he has a condition that significantly impacts his epithelial tissues, which includes but is not limited to skin.