feces eating

my girl is 5 and from very stable family. She has always been a bugger eater, which I thought she would eventually grow out of. Now all of sudden she been sticking her fingers in her anus and licking them. MY wife and I are dumbfounded.  We have 5 kids and none of them did anything like that. We don't know where this is coming from or what to do. We have talked to her about hygiene. She's such a beautiful child in so many ways but this is really out of our league.. What should we do? Why is she doing this?

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

From a parenting perspective, set an absolute limit on this and discipline her via a fifteen minute time out if it occurs. Confer with her pediatrician as well. It would make sense to arrange an evlaution with a pediatric mental health clinician for the purpose of ruling out any underlying emotional disorder.