Personal hygiene is an integral part of life that every child must be taught, and this education begins subtly in the moments after their birth. Babies take soothing baths, we use small and soft toothbrushes as their first teeth appear, and we dress them in immaculately clean clothes. However, just because they are surrounded by order and cleanliness 24 hours a day, every day of the week, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t reinforce their sense of cleanliness or check to see if they are doing everything correctly.
Let’s see how you can steer your child in the right direction regarding hygiene routines:
- Build knowledge: Start with the basics when children are still young and continue sharing information as they grow. Good hygiene habits established in childhood are important foundations for teenage needs. Even at a young age, you can talk to them about different pathogens and bacteria. You don’t have to make it too complicated, but you can mention that tiny, invisible creatures live around us, some of which are good and help us, while others are better kept away from us. You can also use books and games to explain.
- Introduce new activities and habits gradually! Less is more, so it’s enough to learn one thing at a time. Let them practice until they need to! Once they can do a certain activity independently for at least 2-3 weeks, you can introduce a new topic. Here’s how to start:
- First, show them how you do it
- It’s also useful to show them what not to do so they can see the mistakes they might make. For example, not brushing the back teeth. Children learn more easily through real-life examples, so if you have any stories related to the topic, you can tell them as well. For instance, grandma didn’t brush her back teeth properly and got a cavity.
- Another good method is to put reminders on the wall, such as to remember to wash hands after using the toilet.
- Keep everything within reach! If everything is easily accessible to the child (e.g., soap, toothbrush, tissues), then there can be no excuse for not using them.
- Talk openly! As in any other case, open and clear communication is important in the topic of hygiene, and it’s worth following from the beginning. This can also make it easier to discuss hygiene-related topics that arise during adolescence.
- Identify pleasant and unpleasant smells – help the child identify pleasant and unpleasant smells on themselves, explain to them that sweat, for example, can have an unpleasant odor. You can do this in a playful way by smelling different objects together and everyone saying which was pleasant and which was unpleasant in that particular case.
- Talk about appearance! Not only are smells and scents important aspects of hygiene, but neat and clean dressing, hair, and shoes are also part of it.
- Set a good example! We could have started the list with this point because without you, the child will not be able to establish good routines or follow them. So if you want your child to be neat and clean, you must be too!
- Join in on the party! It helps children follow instructions and guidelines more easily if the whole family does it together.
If we want to prevent infections, we must consider hygiene as an overarching goal. Of course, this doesn’t mean that everything needs to be swimming in disinfectant, but within reasonable limits, we need to focus on hygiene-related issues. Below are topics to help introduce routines that support hygiene:
- Oral hygiene
- Hair care
- Cleanliness of our skin and body
- Handwashing
- Hygiene in the home
- Hygiene in the kitchen
- How to stay healthy?
Good hygiene habits are not developed overnight; it takes a lot of practice and repetition to do it independently. As parents, it is our task to teach our children to maintain personal and environmental hygiene, starting from washing hands, brushing teeth, to having a clean kitchen counter. We, as adults, already know the steps, but at one point, we had to learn them too. Now it’s your turn to be your child’s teacher for a clean and germ-free life.
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