Hair twirling

[Smoke Jaguar]

My niece did this for years and she's now nearly 11yo. She hasn't done it in the past two years (since getting a little baby sister...maybe the distraction cured her!), and she has FINE blond hair, so she couldn't really afford to be losing the hair she'd eventually twist out of her hair! She was a real tomboy, too, so she didn't mind losing her hair to the chop, as would often happen when she twisted out huge chunks...photos of the chunks serve as a reminder to her!
My thoughts for a while were that her dad's wild parties at home may have been partly to blame, but her parents are nothing but extremely loving to their kids, and don't do favouritism with the older son (or subsequent kids). I know she hated, absolutely hated, when her dad would get drunk (and stoned, but she didn't know that was contributing at the time!) and would curl up to me and cry, when she was about 6-8yo...and in every other way to this day she is a completely self-confident child.
One thing, she is eccentric (in a very lovable way, she has friends, so she's not a weirdo in that sense!) and definitely walks to the beat of her own drum...and it's great to see a kid who doesn't conform to what other kids her age are doing. So, I tend to see it now (the hair curling) as just a habit that was hard wired in her brain (she would thumb suck vigorously...usually at the same time as twirling, as photographic evidence would have it!) that she just needed to grow out of. I guess it worked out very well that it wasn't made a big deal of, the kids at school never seemed to notice, and she's always been appreciated as the oddball she is. Very intelligent, inquisitive and caring child she is! Just to give you an illustration of another child who does the exact same thing.
My verdict tends to be that it's just a 'thing', it might not be an indicator of emotional unrest, and it's something that causes a physiological chain of events that comfort and reassure your friends DD. I hope