I was wondering if you knew of any stim toys that are small enough to fit in a pocket but don't require repetitive thumb motions to play with?
This is a really good question, speaking as someone in possession of a dodgy thumb myself. My right thumb is often the biggest reason I need to stop playing with a stim toy: I’ve had it flare up from Tangles, thinking putty (thinking putty is actually the worst for aggravating my thumb) and even firm stress balls. I’ve been very careful about my fidget cube because I know hitting those switches once too often will trigger a bad flare. And while I only hold a fidget spinner with my thumb, even the weight of that, after too long a time, sets off my thumb. Fidgeting with hand, finger, thumb and wrist pain is difficult.
So this ask resulted in me standing, going to my closest basket and picking stuff up. It’s funny how you don’t often think about how you use your hands in stimming (even though I have a lot invested in thinking about just this). A lot of my avoidance of pain triggers was done entirely subconsciously, so stopping to think about this was pretty interesting for me! An awful lot of what we do requires repetitive movements of fingers and especially repetitive movements of our dominant thumb. And when you throw in a size requirement (as in that this toy is portable, which excludes things like kinetic sand, a very hand-gentle stim toy), suddenly … suddenly there’s a surprisingly small number of toys left.
(I’m really glad, though, that I now have a pretty good collection of stim toys myself. Not everything, yet, but enough that I can go and road test asks like this.)
The problem is that most things require either pushing or grasping, and humans tend to do both with our thumbs. Anything ball-shaped like a bouncy ball, die or prickle ball, out. Anything that needs to be grabbed in one hand, out. Speaking as the owner said dodgy thumb, even something like grasping the frond of a hedge ball or Hairy Tangle and gently pulling is out, as that puts a surprising amount of strain on your thumb.
I’m thinking that you’re left with things that can be stroked, rolled or gently squished with your fingers that don’t require gripping.
(All links below go to that item’s tag, since there will be posts about retailers and sources on each tag.)
- Makeup sponges, mini bean bags or the smaller crocheted stress balls. (Or squishies of a similar size!) The teardrop ones are small enough that I can hold them in my hand and squish with my fingers, but large enough that I don’t need to clench or grasp. Anything bigger requires your thumb to flex when you squish. The mini bean bags can be just wedged in your hand, or held by a still thumb, and shaken, or rolled over your palms, depending on size and shape.
(Think Mod Luna’s Teeny Beans, @dragonadventurescrafting‘s Moosh shapes and @caseydickdanger‘s Smol Beans.)
- Larger bean bags can be tossed from one flat palm to the other. I’m more likely to drop them this way, mind, but I don’t need my thumb at all. The triangular bags are less easy to drop in a flat or lightly cradled palm!
- Mini Koosh balls can be rolled between your palms, no thumbs involved! Plus the texture (if you don’t have latex allergies) is divine!
- Beaded fidgets designed to be rolled. Things like the lizard/gecko fidgets, roller massagers and roller bead lanyards. These can be held flat against a surface like a table or your own leg by your palm and rolled, no grasping required. Or between two flat palms!
- Disney Mini Plush Tsum Tsums, fuzzy keychains or other small, textured plushies/soft toys. They can be held in your lap or in a pocket and gently stroked with your fingers, no thumb needed at all.
- A marble maze can be held flat on your table or thigh with one hand and the marble pushed with the fingers of the other hand, no thumb use at all.
- You can use a Tangle Jr (note that I can’t use a Tangle Jr one-handed anyway, so this is a two-handed usage) without using one thumb if you loop it through your pointer finger instead of grasping it and just rest that thumb still on said finger.
- A Twiddle can be held in the palm and crunched into a rough ball shape with the fingers. I often grab one in one hand and twist it around the fingers of the opposite hand, not using my right thumb at all. If you still have the use of one thumb, this is pretty workable. You can also roll it between your palms for the texture and scrunch without using thumbs at all, and this is the way I most often stim with it!
Please note that some of these things might still move your thumb enough to cause pain if your inflammation is severe. Sometimes just moving my hand is enough to set my thumb off on a bad day! It will take a little experimentation to find out just how much leeway you have. But these things all avoid repetitive flicking, pushing and grasping and are easily pocket-portable (and some work as stealth stims even in said pocket) so I think this is a good place to begin.
If you have some experience with hand pain and stim toys, please add away! I’m always interested in finding more pain-free ways to work fidget toys!
