I have two god sons. Twin boys. Mariano and Davione. Davione is the youngest by two minutes; a lot more small, more aggressive, very stubborn and a thumb sucker. Since I can remember he has always sucked his thumb. Every time we used to catch him, we would yell at him or take his hand out his mouth. Its our only way to get him to listen but later on we would catch him with his thumb in his mouth. Our aggressive punishment wasn’t enough for him.
In order to hopefully get his thumb sucking habit suppressed, his family and I began to use an over-correction of punishment. His family and I started carrying Hand Sanitizer with us last year, a more aversive stimuli. As soon as we catch him putting his thumb in his mouth we wash his hands with sanitizer. Not only does he hate the taste and smell of the sanitizer, we make him tell us why we are or have drenched his hands with the solution. Slowly but surely were hope to see an end altogether of his thumb sucking. Occasionally, when no one is looking he does it and the over-correction of punishment is repeated.
Recent Reinforcers