Scab/wound picking

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My three year old son will pick any scab or wound, even on me! lol and if I go "OW" or "no stop" he just cries and shakes his head and throws himself down.

He won't leave a bandage on, he picks at wounds until they are three times as big and bleeding

There doesn't seem to be a way to stop him, he does it in his sleep even.

I did this as a child and my oldest son does it as well. My mom and I had to pretty much wait until sickness and what we look like to others became clear to me or him. It took me a bit longer then my son but what we did was talk about how you can get sick from infections and that and the picking could cause infection etc... Also we used the whole this causes scars and do you like what scars look like on others and then switch to how they look on me/ him. In the mean time best I can say is stay vigelant during the day and put socks or gloves on him at night. My mom had to duck tape mine on, it didn't get that bad with my son. I can also say both me and my son did it for relief from the feeling of dryness, itchiness and tightness that happens when you have a healing wound. Try putting lotion on them first. If its for that reason the lotion should help. If he does it because he is fascinated with it I guess I don't know what you could do.

I still do that. Even though it hurts, it also sort of feels good to peel it off because it seems like the scab "doesn't belong".

I also like to peel sunburn.

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I did that as a kid and still do it. It drives my husband crazy. Luckily my kids don't do it (yet). Honestly I'm not sure there is anything you can do except maybe put the kid on SSRIs to lower the OCD tendencies. But I don't think it's a great idea to medicate young kids.

I still do this... I think it is more related to OCD than autism.

have you tried wrapping the bandage in gauze? it would make it harder to pick at

I dunno why it's so great to pick skin, but it is. I thought about a device that causes you to feel like you are picking your own scab when you are picking a scab on an artificial hand to avoid picking the scab on your own hand.

How long are his fingernails? If you can cut them really short, that'll limit the damage he can do.

In my case, my habit of biting my nails came in handy when it came to my skin-picking. I still do it, but I can't cause the kind of damage with it that you're describing here because I don't have much of my fingernails past the quick.

I know NTs who do that.