Why does my child pull out their own eyelashes?
Patchy lashes, snapped off at different lengths, usually during homework or screen time. Most often this is a habit, not naughtiness and not a sign your child is hurting their eyes. Here is how to tell it apart from the other causes, and what actually helps.
- Lash pulling in children is most often a body-focused repetitive behaviour called trichotillomania, not deliberate misbehaviour.
- It usually looks patchy, with hairs broken at different lengths, because a pulled lash snaps unevenly rather than falling out at the root.
- Blepharitis, alopecia areata and allergic eye rubbing can all look similar and need ruling out.
- A calm, non-punitive approach that keeps the hands busy helps more than commenting on it or asking your child to stop.
- If it persists for months or affects how your child feels, a paediatrician or child psychologist experienced in habit-reversal support is the right next step.
Parents often come to me because the lashes on one of their child's eyes have almost disappeared. The child is well, not unhappy in any way anyone can name, and the pulling happens mostly during homework, one lash at a time, without the child seeming to notice. The first question is usually whether the eye has been hurt. Usually it has not. What the child has is a habit, and habits like this one have a name.
Why is my child pulling out their own eyelashes?
Most often it is a habit called trichotillomania, one of a group of behaviours doctors call body-focused repetitive behaviours: small, repeated actions on the body itself, done mostly without full awareness. It usually starts in later childhood, and it affects boys and girls about equally. It is not naughtiness, and it is not something your child is doing to upset you or to get attention.
The pulling tends to happen during the quiet, low-stimulation moments of the day: homework, screen time, the run-up to sleep, the back seat of the car. Boredom is one trigger. So is concentration, oddly enough, the same way an adult clicks a pen or twists a ring while thinking. Stress and anxiety can drive it too, but not always: plenty of children pull lashes while calm and absorbed in something else entirely. The pattern matters more than the mood attached to it.
What does habit-related lash pulling actually look like?
Patchy, with hairs of different lengths, and often on one side more than the other. A pulled lash snaps or comes away unevenly rather than falling out cleanly at the root the way shed hairs normally do, so what you see under a closer look is a mix of short stubble and longer surviving lashes rather than a smooth bald strip. The lid itself is usually not red, sore or swollen. That last point is the one I check for first, because it is what tells habit pulling apart from the eye conditions in the next section.
Some children pull only lashes. Others also pull eyebrow hair, or scalp hair, or all three at different times. A child who pulls lashes on both eyes and brows on top is not a more severe case than one who only touches one eyelid. It is simply where that particular child's hands have settled.
Could it be something else, not a habit?
Sometimes, and this is exactly why I want to see the child rather than take a description over the phone. Two other conditions can cause lash loss, and each looks different up close. Blepharitis, inflammation along the lid margin, leaves crusting at the base of the lashes and lids that stick together on waking, a pattern I have written about in full in an article on children with sore, crusty lids that keep coming back. Alopecia areata, an autoimmune condition, causes smooth, round patches of hair loss with no broken stubble at all, because the hair falls out at the root rather than snapping partway. A dermatologist is the right doctor to confirm or rule out alopecia areata, not an eye clinic, but I am often the first doctor to notice the pattern and point a family in that direction.
There is a fourth, more common possibility worth ruling out before you assume the worst: a child who constantly drags a hand across itchy, allergic eyes can thin out the lashes simply through friction, without any deliberate pulling at all. If your child's hands are at their eyes constantly and the eyes themselves look red, watery or puffy, read about the ordinary reasons children rub their eyes before assuming this is trichotillomania. The two habits can look similar from across a room and need quite different responses.
Can pulling lashes hurt my child's eyes?
Mostly it does not, and that is genuinely reassuring to say. Lashes grow back, and losing a patch of them for a few months does no lasting damage to sight. The real risk is secondary, not from the pulling itself but from the handling around it: fingers repeatedly at the lid margin can irritate the eyelid and introduce the same kind of low-grade inflammation and infection risk that excessive rubbing does, since inflamed, poorly kept lid margins and frequent rubbing sit on the same list of things that make a child prone to recurrent lid infections and lumps. A child who is pulling lashes and also developing a red, sore or crusty lid needs that looked at directly, not managed at home a while longer.
What actually helps at home?
Calm, and not making it the centre of every conversation. The single most unhelpful thing a well-meaning adult can do is comment on it every time it happens, because a child who feels watched and corrected usually pulls more, not less, the same pattern I see with the blinking and squeezing tics I write about in a separate article on telling tics apart. Punishment, nagging, and bargains about stopping all tend to backfire for the same reason: they add pressure to something that was never a matter of willpower in the first place.
What helps more is noticing, quietly, when the pulling tends to happen, and offering the hands something else to do at exactly that moment: a fidget toy, a stress ball, a piece of putty, plaiting hair, holding a favourite object during homework or in the car. This does not need to be presented to your child as a fix for a problem. It works best as an ordinary habit, offered without commentary, the way you might hand over a snack.
When does this need a paediatrician or a child psychologist, not just me?
When the pulling has gone on for months rather than weeks, when it is affecting how your child feels about themselves, or when a calm, low-key approach at home has not made a difference after a reasonable trial. This is the point at which habit-reversal support genuinely helps: a therapist trained in this area teaches a child to notice the urge to pull earlier, and to swap it for a different, harmless action at that exact moment, which is a specific, learnable skill rather than a matter of trying harder. Your paediatrician is a sensible first stop for a referral, and a child psychologist with experience in body-focused repetitive behaviours does the more detailed work from there. I do not manage this side of things myself, and I say so plainly to families rather than offering a vague eye-clinic answer to a question that belongs with someone else.
When should I actually bring my child in to see an eye doctor?
Bring your child in if the eyelid itself looks red, swollen, crusty or sore, if there is any discharge, if your child complains the eye hurts rather than simply that they were pulling at it, or if you are genuinely unsure whether this is a habit or something else entirely, including alopecia areata. An eye examination is quick, tells us plainly whether the lid margin is involved, and takes only a short visit. It also gives you an answer you can act on, rather than a guess you carry around for another few months.
Most children who pull their own lashes are otherwise entirely well, and for many the habit settles with time and a little quiet support. Parents sometimes apologise to me for bringing in "something so small". It is not small to the child doing it, and it is never a wasted visit to have a doctor look and tell you plainly what you are dealing with.
- The eyelid itself looks red, swollen, crusty or sore, or there is any discharge.
- Your child says the eye hurts, rather than only describing the pulling.
- You cannot tell whether this is a habit or a smooth, round patch that could be alopecia areata.
- The pulling has gone on for months, or is affecting how your child feels about themselves.
Common questions
Is my child pulling out their eyelashes on purpose?
Will the eyelashes grow back?
How do I tell a habit apart from alopecia areata?
Should I punish or stop my child from pulling their lashes?
Could my child be pulling their lashes because of an eye problem?
When does lash pulling need more than watching and waiting?
Is lash pulling common in children?
- TLC Foundation for BFRBs · Hair Pulling Disorder (Trichotillomania) · www.bfrb.org
- National Alopecia Areata Foundation · What is alopecia areata? · www.naaf.org
- American Academy of Ophthalmology · What is blepharitis? · www.aao.org
- AAPOS · Chalazion (risk factors: inflamed eyelids, poor lid hygiene, excessive eye rubbing) · aapos.org