Children’s scratching and itching: What can I do?

Children with skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis may often scratch
their skin. It is well known that scratching can significantly worsen the symptoms
of skin disease, sometimes causing infection. It has been common for scratching
behaviour to be viewed as a habit much like any other habit, repeated because it
effectively brought relief from itching in the past.
Some authors have suggested that children’s scratching may be related
to social and environmental factors and showed this by asking 30 children
with severe atopic dermatitis and their parents to undertake a series of tasks
together which were either structured or unstructured. They found that the
children were more likely to scratch their skin or ask their parents to scratch
them during play rather than when they have to undertake a task together.
What was extremely important about this particular research was that they
found that scratching and rubbing were most likely to occur when the par-
ents were asking the children to stop scratching or otherwise paying attention
to the child’s scratching behaviour. By paying attention to these behaviours,
parents can reinforce scratching and actually make it worse. Accordingly,
parents should be careful to consciously limit the attention they give to chil-
dren’s scratching behaviour. The authors showed that children’s scratching
and rubbing were less likely to occur when parents were attending to other,
non-scratching behaviours.
So far we have looked at some behavioural and psychological aspects of
trying to improve the child’s skin disease. Since childhood skin disease most com-
monly begins in early childhood, problems with sleep can arise due to itching
and scratching. It is thought that long-term sleep problems further worsen the
skin through psychological stress and it is important to emphasise the impor-
tance of good sleep for both child and parents in managing the stresses of
the day.
It has been shown that children with atopic dermatitis have a greater number
of night wakings than children without dermatitis. Sleep continuity is likely to be
affected by itching and scratching.

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