1. Has your child got soft skin or hard skin? Run your finger around the troubled itchy sites that you have noticed your child tends to rub most. If you feel their skin is thickened or rough, it is important to understand that thick skin is incredibly itchy for your child. So keep moisturising regularly because it is that treatment that will soften the skin and break the chronic itching and scratching cycle that leads to thick skin.

2. There are a lot of different moisturisers available. Keep experimenting with the help of your doctor or nurse until you find one that suits you and your child. Consider using an oily moisturiser at night like 50% liquid paraffin/50% white soft paraffin, as its emollient action is excellent at night.

3. Consider putting small pots of moisturiser in all the rooms of your home to make it more accessible and easier to apply. This is especially useful if your child has a particularly itchy localised area - e.g. their waist - as it makes regular moisturising easier.

4. Try to remember to praise your child when they have not been scratching their skin, because such praise will reward your child for not scratching.

5. A young child may sometimes use their eczema as a weapon if they are cross about something, for example deliberately scratching to get some attention. There is no easy answer to this, but it is important to reward good behaviour and ignore bad behaviour.

6. If your child is still itchy, do not forget to make sure that their fingernails are short to prevent further damage at night. Consider trying to humidify their bedroom air with a humidifier or a bowl of water.

7. Do not be afraid to ask your doctor the questions that are troubling you. Obviously it can be difficult to concentrate on looking after your child in the surgery and to concentrate on what is happening in the consultation with your doctor, so sometimes it can help to bring an older child or relative who can look after your child so that you can concentrate on the consultation.

8. Just as your child's condition is currently persistent, so must your efforts to control that condition be persistent. Do not lose heart if your child's symptoms are still persisting. Try and look at the different treatment components ( emollient, topical steroids, oral antihistamines, treatment of infection) and see are there areas in these key parts of your child's therapy that need to be adjusted to gain better control.

9. Finally, looking after a child with eczema is not easy sometimes. You may feel tired and not want to apply treatment. If one or both of you is exhausted, you may have to skip a treatment. It is sometimes good to realise that by applying topical treatment you are also giving your child something he or she craves – your attention. Treatment times can be a time of laughter and fun. It is worth rewarding yourself and your child from time to time if you are trying to stick to a regular treatment programme. Remember the results are often worth the effort when you can achieve good control - stopping itch and clearing the unsightly red crusted areas of skin.

Written by Dr Bart Ramsay MD, MRCGP, Consultant Dermatologist.