The Fastest Way to No Thumb Sucking

We’ve been working on trying to get Luke to stop sucking his thumb. He’s five years old now. It’s time. But he just doesn’t want to stop.

Luke hates chocolate. I jokingly threaten to dip his thumb in chocolate whenever I see him sucking his thumb.

Jack likes to be “helpful” and tattle on Luke when he sees him sucking his thumb.

We were in the car the other day and I noticed Luke sucking his thumb.

“Take it out,” I said.

He did, for as long as I could look at him while driving, which was about 0.5 seconds.

“He’s doing it again,” Jack informed me. “We’re going to put it in chocolate,” he said to Luke.

“No, but we might have to get serious and put the bad tasting stuff on it,” I said.

“What’s that?” Jack asked.

I said, “Some parents get this stuff that tastes really, really bad, and they put it on their kid’s thumb to get him to stop sucking it. And it’s not chocolate. It’s serious stuff and it tastes bad.”

Jack said, “You hear that, Luke? If you don’t stop sucking your thumb, we’re going to put salad on it.”

That ought to do it.