Thumb sucking

image by Megabu7

Thumb sucking is a self-directed behaviour that for the most part is viewed as perfectly normal and natural within a certain age range.  It is usually performed by children after weaning - and its emergence suggests that the weaning process has occurred too quickly and ended before the child was ready.  Thumb sucking reveals that the mother's body was once the child's living environment and that its (the child's) physical functions remain rooted in the mother.  

Persistence of thumb sucking beyond early childhood suggests the child has not been able transfer comfort seeking to an age appropriate behaviour.  Freud referred to such regressive tendencies as fixations and this related to his idea that there were stages of development or specific phases and sometimes children could get stuck at a certain stage.  The notion of stages is not so adhered to these days - normatively children will go through behaviours at certain points but there is nothing arbitrary or inevitable about the mode of expression that will be manifested.  

Having a physical function rooted in the mother's body implies separation has not been managed in the interest of the child but probably been imposed arbitrarily on the child by the parent who has decided that it is TIME for the next stage of growing up to be reached.  It is important that we get away from the idea of fixed stages in order to prevent the kind of thinking imposes change for no good reason.  I believe that if a child is allowed the freedom to behave in accordance with his wishes and needs then in time s/he will move on in his/her development soon enough.

Ultimately, thumb sucking is a healthy thing because it shows that oral behaviours have developed,  and that the child has attained an important level of physical functioning.  The child whose oral development is disturbed might never suck his thumb - nor dervive comfort from other things such as blankets or soft toys.   But more on these comfort behaviours in another post.