The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Habit

This is a great book to let little ones know that they are not alone with their bad habits. I am glad that we had it before we worked on stopping nail biting with Mavala Stop. It worked great!

I gave this book five stars because, more than any other technique we've tried, it has helped my daughter stop sucking her thumb. Now four years old, she had been sucking her thumb since she was about six months old. We've tried rewards, sticker charts, threatening loss of privileges, talking with the dentist, the works. Nothing worked. This book, in three weeks, has taken my daughter's bad habit from an all-day activity to just one she does in her sleep. We're still applying the principles from the book, in hopes that it even eradicates the sleep-time habit as well. In any case, I could not be happier that we read this book together.

The book is about the habit of nail biting although we used it to discuss quitting the thumb-sucking habit. It's a nice way to talk to your kid about how hard it is to break a bad habit. And it gave me, as the parent, an idea for how to reward daily efforts, rather than total success.

i find the berenstain bears book collection educational. this one was (surprisingly) an eye-opener for me as a parent as well. i followed the tip given here to stop my child from bitting his fingernails - and it worked.

Once again Stan and Jan have made a complex issue simple for the child. I love the way they explain what a habit is and why it is hard to break. Sister's bad habit is biting her nails but we substitute whatever we want (nose picking etc.)and our children (age 2 and 6) roar with laughter as they learn that a habit isn't easy to quit...but you can do it with practice. We love this book. I even gave it to a college student who bites her nails and she loves it too.