Thumb sucking, 1939 – Susan Isaacs reassures her correspondent that this will pass unless there are deep-seated emotional problems

July 1939 in Home and School "Readers’ Questions"

Thumb sucking

‘Still in Difficulties’ writes: I am so much interested in the correspondence of your January issue on the subject of thumb-sucking, and in Dr. Isaacs’ tolerant outlook in relation to it. But I should be glad to know whether the cure she advocates has actually been known to cause a cessation of the habit in many cases. It is a solution of which I have read many times, but one which I feel must often leave the problem unsolved.

            Both my own children - a boy of 7 ½ and a girl of 4 years - invariably suck their thumbs at the first hint of fatigue, the boy from birth and the girl from the age of about one year. With the boy, my monthly nurse waged a battle-royal, with the obvious results. The girl, we were determined, should be left entirely free - but she developed the habit none the less, though possibly in imitation. Both children were breast-fed - the girl for four months only.

            Neither child had had to suffer from any of the recognised causes requiring compensation - i.e. unhappy or unharmonious home, lack of or biased affection, etc., - home life is warm, alive and jolly and these two children are devoted to one another. I do not believe that any nursery school could induce my small girl to put her mouth to any happier use than those which occupy it at present, as she sings or talks most of her days, and is a most concentrated creature, with a great variety of interests - but- opposes any attempts to get her to go off to sleep, or to cuddle up against someone, without its support.

Yes, I have found as a rule that children grow out of the need to suck their thumbs if all their emotional needs are adequately met. It is true that there is no panacea for this or any other problem in children’s development. There is no single remedy that will cure any particular difficulty. It might be that your little girl imitated the older boy whose passion for thumb sucking had been increased by the very struggle of the nurse to deprive him of that pleasure.

But I am not sure that your confidence that a nursery school would not help your little girl is really justified. Actual experience had shown over and over again that thumb-sucking and other such habits do tend to lessen and pass away when children have companionship in their play. Even the warm affection and jolly atmosphere of home, and the interests and experiences which it can provide, do not fully satisfy a child unless there are plenty of other children to share her play and give her a variety of social experiences. The presence of other children is often a greater support against the anxieties which lead to thumb-sucking than playing alone or with an older boy.

However, if your little girl is developing so happily - singing and talking and interested in many different things, contented and jolly - then I myself would not worry very much about the thumb-sucking, especially if it only happens when the children are tired or going to sleep. It only merits bothering about when it is going on compulsively all the time, because then one knows that it is a sign of considerable inner difficulties which need special help.