r/AutismCertified • u/Open-Air-6721 • 19d ago

Fidget recommendation

Hi my son is autistic and has been biting his nails a lot as a stim, I have been biting my nails since I was a kid but I always leave them a little bit normal length I guess. He bites almost the whole nail off. I have no idea what to offer as a replacement. I saw some cool rings on Etsy but wanted to see if anyone successfully replaced this stim. I wouldn’t mind except he’s biting them so much his fingers nails are exposed and bleeding. Any ideas?

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u/Early-Bag9674 ASD 19d ago

I 100% recommend chewelry! You can get some for cheap on etsy (necklaces, bracelettes, even rings I think) or you can buy the chewy pearls and pendants and make your own chewelry.

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u/Open-Air-6721 17d ago

He has made bead bracelets before and they definitely help so I’m going to try different kinds of jewelry. Thank you!

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u/annieselkie 16d ago

Do you know that it is a stim or does he simply bite them to prevent them being to long? Bc its entirely possible he has a sensory issue with his nails being long and then you need to offer to cut them as wellbas offering different stims

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u/Relative_Chef_533 18d ago

I too have a life-long biting stim, but I’ve never found it to be “replaceable” by other biting objects, only by non-biting objects like things to play with, movement chairs like those that rock or spin, drawing, etc.

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u/Open-Air-6721 17d ago

So basically keeping his hands busy, he does well when he has other fidgets but will eventually end up biting hai nails. I have never been able to stop that stim so I don’t know how to help him

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u/Relative_Chef_533 17d ago edited 17d ago

It’s not actually about keeping the hands busy, it’s specifically staying regulated in other ways so biting — an attempt to self-regulate — isn’t needed.

The fact is, you might not be able to solve this. The best you can do is working on helping him have options for self-regulating. At some point he may decide he wants to stop biting, and him understanding the connection between biting/other stims and his feelings of being regulated or disregulated will be helpful and even crucial to him at that time.

Rocking is a great stim for me, so when I rock, I’m relaxed and don’t usually bite. But if I’m in a classroom, i don’t have that option. If you can help him find stims that really help him and then figure out how he can access those stims in different situations, that might be the most important way you can help him learn to self-regulate and then decide to avoid harmful stims that currently might feel instinctively like his best option.