Here’s an answer to if the cause of a child’s skin picking is OCD or bad parenting.
What mother would ever blame herself for her child’s skin picking?
Does your child pick at his or her skin? Is OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) or bad parenting the cause?
- Coming up with a conclusive answer could be challenging.
- However, is it logical to exclude parenting style from the equation?
When I saw my niece for the first time when she was 15, I inquired about what appeared to be cigarette burns up and down her arms. She said she picked her skin.
Her mother, a doctor whose practice at that time focused on treating people with ADHD and OCD, thought that the girl picked her skin as a result of some genetic wiring flaw in the brain.
Her mother is my sister. Just to give a little context: My sister does not have a medical board certification, and never did, in a specialty related to ADHD or OCD.
In fact, she’s never been board certified in any medical specialty.
Her residency, though, was in pediatrics, and after giving up on passing any Boards, she opened a private pediatric practice.
Eventually she turned to focusing on ADHD, OCD and even addiction, having taken certification courses in these areas, as well as acquiring certification in social work.
With all that said, it’s easier to imagine a child skin picking as a result of being henpecked day and night by a bullying mother, as opposed to being caused by a genetic disorder.
This girl’s parents also had begun divorce proceedings when she was 13, and it was ugly.
I want to interject here that in 2022 I was diagnosed with autism, and since then, have learned that skin picking is more common among autistic people than in neurotypical people.
However, this doesn’t mean that we should look at autism as a possible cause of my niece’s skin picking.
When I look back at her overall behavior, I realize that absolutely there were no signs that were suspicious for autism.
I also don’t see any point in considering the possibility that she concealed any autism via “masking.” But even if she had — this in no way dilutes the hardcore fact that her mother was emotionally abusive.
Furthermore, “more common in autism than in neurotypicals” does NOT translate to “common in autism.”
Neurodivergence aside, let’s imagine hearing from your mother, from the moment you get up in the morning, till it’s time for bed, everything you did wrong that day. Day after day.
That was my niece’s world when she was growing up.
Her mother continuously took slings at her. It was no wonder the girl became a skin picker.
Skin picking, like an eating disorder, is a response to feeling out of control and full of shortcomings, according to skinpick.com.
My niece had been on the receiving end of frequent denigrating remarks from her mother for years – confirmed by my cousin who’d had regular contact with them over the years.
When my sister and her kids were visiting my parents, an hour couldn’t go by without my sister harping on her oldest daughter for no good reason.
An example was when her mother went on a tirade because Emma was searching wastebaskets for a coupon that she believed she had accidentally thrown out.
Like, what is so abnormal and deserving of insults about searching for a coupon in a waste can? What level-headed adult has never done this?
“Emma takes long at everything,” her mother snidely declared, after the girl innocently commented to me that she eats slowly.
The girl had a brooding and glum, rather than neurodivergent, presentation.
Emma was on three drugs (prescribed by her mother) including Risperdal, whose main label use is for schizophrenia, says Risperdal.com.
However, my niece was not schizophrenic or psychotic. She took this drug for OCD: obsessive compulsive disorder.
A child would have to be superhuman not to exhibit maladaptive behaviors as as result of being raised by a bully.
Though my sister didn’t believe in corporal punishment, she definitely hurled words like rocks.
And sometimes, it wasn’t about words, but about behavior.
During their visit, I, my sister, her three kids and my brother went on an easy hike.
My niece complained of a headache at some point. It was very hot, and though she had a trim figure, she was out of shape because she didn’t exercise or play sports.
Her mother suggested she shake water from her water bottle onto her arms to cool off. So far, this sounds like a reasonable suggestion. But — there’s more to it.
Since it was hot out, the water in the bottle was warm; not very pleasant to drink.
Emma casually declined the suggestion to sprinkle it on her arms.
You’d think it would have ended there. But for about 10 minutes, my sister kept demanding that the teen sprinkle water on her arms to “cool off.”
I do not know how sprinkling warm water on one’s arms will cool someone off. Do you?
My sister wouldn’t let this go and turned it into a full-blown power struggle.
Finally, she grabbed her daughter’s bottle and began shaking it at her, droplets flying everywhere, and the distressed girl kept dodging the droplets, literally being chased by her mother.
This was no silly game of tag. Nobody was even grinning. This was clearly a bullying scenario. No wonder the girl picked at her skin.
Skinpick.com even says that a prominent reason a child begins skin picking is in response to being bullied by a parent!
I don’t have a PhD in child psychology, but I have eyes and ears.
This girl was a good kid in that she got good grades and was quite skilled with her favorite musical instrument. Her goal was to either be an English teacher or crime scene investigator.
She grew up to get a college degree in English and work at a bank. I’ve had no contact with her other than when she was 15, and then again at 18.
As of 2023 she’s 28. I have no idea if she ever ceased picking at her skin. However, she has many tattoos.
Skinpick.com explains that the definitive cause of skin picking is the subject of research, but a leading explanation is that a child feels she has no control in her world – except that which is very much within reach: her skin.
So she picked her skin, creating some order in a chaotic world by controlling this one feature. Skin picking symbolizes an active control.
The markings were obvious and plentiful. I’m not talking about just two or three on one arm.
I just cannot believe for a second that this child would have developed skin picking regardless of what kind of parent-child dynamics were going on.
