Playing, learning and exploring are part of children’s daily lives, which is why we sometimes have to remind them to pay attention to their personal hygiene. Teaching your child good body hygiene is essential for their health as well as their self-confidence, but this should not be seen as a chore. These 6 steps to keep our body clean will allow them to ensure perfect body hygiene like adults and to make them more independent in no time.
Personal hygiene: Definition
Before making the list of personal hygiene rules, your child should understand the answer to this basic question: “What is personal hygiene, and why is it important?” Your child will learn this in particular by observing your own hygiene habits, so set a good example!
Sit down with your child and explain the reasons why good personal hygiene is essential for them, namely:
Avoid the development of microbes that can make you sick
Allow him to feel healthy and better about himself
Help him improve his relationships with other children in the playground
Create a handy list of daily body hygiene rules to help you establish a body hygiene routine for the whole family. You can ask them to decorate it with colored pencils to stick it on the wall of their room. What should you include in this list? Start with these 6 essential rules of personal hygiene for children – and parents!
1. Brush your teeth twice a day
Creating positive associations with tooth washing will help children maintain good body hygiene habits over the long term. Make it a fun moment from the start by encouraging them to squeak like a mouse while they brush their front teeth or roar like a lion while brushing their back teeth. You can also use a timer and sing nursery rhymes to keep them busy for the two minutes of brushing. Explain to them why brushing their teeth is essential to keeping them healthy, especially if they are fond of sweet foods.
2. Wash your hands regularly
Hand washing can be seen as a chore by children until they understand the real importance of personal hygiene rules. Explaining to children that germs are small microbes that can cause nasty diseases is a good start, but the best way to illustrate the concept of bacteria is to use the glitter game.
Cover their hands with glitter, comparing the germs to invisible glitter, and show them how they spread on anything they touch. Ask them to try and remove all the glitter, explaining why it is important to do so to prevent the spread of these “invisible glitter”, especially before meals and after using the toilet. Who said explaining personal hygiene to children was boring?
3. To blow your nose properly
Children who are not yet familiar with the concept of personal hygiene and its definition tend to wipe their hands and nose with what they find on hand … Generally their sleeves! Help them adopt good personal hygiene habits by leaving a box of soft tissues handy. Explain to them that this will prevent the spread of germs to their friends and the rest of the family, while being much more pleasant for their little nose!
4. Change your underwear everyday
It’s obvious to adults, but changing underwear every day is something that children need to learn. Help them understand the difference between good and bad smell, by showing them how fresh laundry smells right after being taken out of the washing machine. Explain that they will smell as good if they change their underwear every day!
Encourage them to be more independent when it comes to body hygiene, by letting them choose their own underwear, putting their dirty clothes in the basket and asking them to help you with the laundry: after all, it’s not just the role of mom or dad!
5. Take a bath or shower regularly
Teach children that taking baths and showers is not only one of the essential rules of body hygiene, but that it is also a good way to have fun and relax. Make it a relaxing moment by offering them a gourmet bubble bath, or a fun moment by letting them take their toys into the bathtub!
6. Cut your nails regularly
Young children often put their hands in their mouths, and long nails can be a nest for bacteria. It is therefore preferable to keep them short by cutting them regularly. If your child finds it uncomfortable to have their nails cut, try playing music, singing a song or doing it while he is in the bath, while explaining that he will feel more comfortable. This will help them relax and create a joyful association of ideas with nail hygiene!
Encourage the whole family to lead by example to help the little ones become familiar with the concept of personal hygiene and its definition. Your little one will be impeccable to the tips of your nails!
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