Being a new father again, I was talking to someone today about the relative advantages of pacifiers and thumbsucking. She said thumbsucking was a double-edged sword, because while you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to put a baby's thumb back in its mouth, you can't take their thumb away when they're older and it's time for that behavior to stop.
That reminded me of a problem we had when we tried to get my oldest to stop sucking his thumb. A teacher at his day care decided to make him him wash his hands every time she caught him sucking his thumb. This helped control the daytime thumbsucking, but it had an unintended consequence.
He was also being potty trained at that time, and both we and the day care insisted he wash his hands after going potty. Unfortunately, this teacher had taught him to associate hand washing with punishment, so he never wanted to go potty because he'd have to wash his hands afterward. This made potty training more difficult.
So take it from this dad. If you're trying to get your kid to give up thumbsucking and need a punishment, make them sit in the time out corner on their thumbsucking hand for 5 minutes, but don't make a positive behavior like hand washing a punishment.
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