Boys and hygiene update

On Thursday I was amused to find this blog post about hygiene and my boys come up in my "on this day" Facebook feed. It's from six years ago.

Our shower. What's not shown is the deep Japanese-style bath.

For all who are still at the elementary-middle school (or younger) stage of parenting and trying to teach their kids about hygiene. I'm hear to briefly tell you there is hope, we have a light at the end of the tunnel here. 

Over the years I've learned that there are personality, not just gender issues involved. Some people are just more pedantic than others. And it also takes longer for some kids to get it than other.

I read the above post to our middle son (who turns 15 this month) and he was horrified, especially at the bit about "not washing hands". Thankfully I rarely now have to tell my boys to wash their hands (the youngest is 12). 

We still have battles sometimes about showers: getting in and getting out (at after a reasonable length of time). Sport really helps us here. Generally when they come home after training they jump straight in the shower, especially the older two.

Teeth cleaning I also rarely have to insist on, though I suspect at least one boy of often not brushing at night time.

It wasn't mentioned in the post above, but we've had trouble in the past with boys wearing their clothes for multiple days before putting them in the wash. Those days seem to be over. Two of them are now washing their own clothes, that in itself seems to have raised their awareness of how clean their clothes are, now many clothes they need in their wardrobe to keep themselves from having to wash too often (which in turn has motivated them to be slightly happier about clothes shopping), and has become something of a badge of honour when they reach high school (when we've enforced this rule). We still wash sports clothes with the rest of the washing (which is down to just three of us, plus sheets and towels, a significant change).

Hair washing and using soap, I don't supervise anymore, obviously, but I think it happens.

Nose blowing can be an issue, but generally because they get lazy and would rather sniff! Drives me insane if they're in the same room as me and I usually lose it after a while.

But in generally we're getting there. It's been a long haul, and one I didn't understand would be so long when we started our family more than 18 years ago. Probably it's good I didn't know!