My 2 year old daughter

I have 3 kids and one of them used to pull his hair out compulsively. I never made a huge freak out deal about it but kept on him with the gentle reminders to not do it. Eventually he quit. I think you should try applying a good, natural lip balm like Burts Bees lip balm (walmart) to your little one's lips when ever they are dry. Do it continually until her lips become smooth and healed again. Tell her how nice she looks with the lip balm on and encourage her to not touch her lips as to remove the pretty lip gloss. Maybe? What do you think? By the way, I would start with the Burts Bees pomegranite balm over the original peppermint flavor because the peppermint oil may sting her damaged lips and scare her off lip balm all together. Any of these Burts Bee lip balms heal exceptionally well though.

Redirection at this age is very useful, even if it is tearing apart a box, which makes a mess. Regardless, you need to treat the way they are harming themselves the same way you would if they were harming someone else. My daughter (2 years, 3 mon) went through a time when she would bang her head or hit herself. Very scary, since I am a former head-banger (literally) myself. She has NEVER seen me do it, though, so very interesting that she has that tendency. At first, I tried the just not making a huge deal out of it bit, not wanting to reinforce the behavior. However, my therapist told me it's no different than if she were hitting someone else, like another kid. This really made me think, and so I always take her hands and look her square in the eye and tell her not to do that, that she (and her head) are precious. She always stops when I do it that way. This has actually helped tremendously and she now rarely does those things at all.

Hi, my daughter also picks at her lips. She is only four years old. It takes days for them to heal sometimes. Today we went to the doctor to find out what we can do to help her. I have been picking at my skin for as long as I can remember. It has always been a fear of mine that one of my girls may inherit this disorder. It started for me on my legs, however over the last twenty years I have scarred almost every area of my body. Most recently on my face. I am beautiful when there are no red marks on my face. So I can't understand why I continue to do this to myself. Medication has helped. I tried many different kinds and find that Wellbutrin is the most effective, however I am on a very high dosage. With my daughter, we have chose to have her sleep with gloves on during the night and naptimes. It took a bit of coaxing from her Daddy to get her to understand the importance of keeping the picking under control. It's hard for me to explain it to her without getting emotional. But now she reminds us if she doesn't have them on before sleep. We use chapstick if she has had a bad day. When not picking at her lips she picks the entire top of her thumb off until it is nothing but raw skin. The gloves also help for this. We also have an agreement between her and I, that whenever we catch the other picking we say our code word. I had her choose the word so it would be something that she helped decide and she feels more involved. She is very proud of herself when she catches me and stops me from doing it. Also this way if we are in public we can simply say one word to stop and there is no embarrasment for either of us. We do this because we are unaware of what we are doing until someone points it out. Or until we see the blood on our fingers. I don't know how severe she is going to end up but I hope it's never as bad as mine has been. I hate having my picture taken half the time because all I can focus on are the marks all over my face. Catching it early and getting her the right treatment now will help her take control of her disorder. I wish that my parents had realized what was going on when I was younger. Until I got together with my husband I didn't realize it was more than just a "bad habit". Now I have it semi under control but it is still a battle for me everyday. I have many other forms of OCD but this one is the most damaging. Talk to your doctor and find out what you can do for your daughter. Trust me she will thank you one day.