Nose picking

Ok people, I want some advice.  What do you do about nose picking and has your solution decreased the frequency of this behavior?  I think anyone with a kid who has both fingers and a nose will at some point find the fingers in the nose.  It’s embarrassing and gross.  One time in church one of my children pulled out a particularly big, gross booger.  As I reached into my diaper bag in search of wet wipes, I saw a look in the child’s eyes that said “what am I going to do with this” and I pulled a wet wipe out just in time to save the booger from entering the child’s mouth.

We haven’t made a big deal out of this behavior.  We usually just tell the offending child that it’s bad manners, send him or her for a tissue, or make some comment about mining for nose gold, but the behavior is still witnessed regularly and I wonder if anyone knows a good way to decrease this behavior.

3 comments

  • I always tell Jacob that the only thing we put in our nose is our elbow, then it becomes a game to see if we can get our elbows into our nose – or each others noses

  • krista

    habenaro sauce on the fingers. . . that’ll stop ’em! no, i don’t know. for ome reason little paul has never found interest in picking his nose (knock on wood). maybe some kids bugers are tastier than others. . . it’s just a theory. . .

  • Barb

    What would happen if you just stared down the offending child? nothing?

    Maybe (s)he would like a neat/convenient way of cleaning the nose, as an alternative to picking. The nose seems to be on the radar, so maybe the booger-picking behavior could be replaced by something else? Like a water spray or one of those little menthol sticks dad used to stick up his nose. Would menthol sticks distract a child from boogers? Or just make the problem worse?