teaching health and hygiene?

In church last Sunday my two youngest boys (ages 8 and 5) were inspecting each other’s chins, looking for “peach fuzz”.  “Yep, there’s a hair there, I can see it.  Oh, how many?  Am I getting my whiskers?”  It was so hard not to bust out laughing, especially since they were totally oblivious to me being able to hear them.  And they really have no chance at a beard since my husband’s whiskers are pretty sparse and on my side of the family male facial hair is non-existant.  

I wish I knew of some good books.  The Personal Hygiene one I listed previously is the closest I’ve found, but I haven’t used it yet.  My boys are really into science so maybe if I discussed the bacteria/smell relationship and other “gross” stuff about hygiene they’d take more notice.  

Of my seven, four are boys, and I can attest to the fact that even when they are teens they don’t always grow out of it. Mine seem to only want to shower if it’s time to clean the kitchen. 🙂

Jenn, OK, I’m knee deep in planning (literally books swallowing me up here on the floor in our bonus room). Needed a mental break. Now I’m ROFL at your comment and yes I can confirm that here as well: dish duty will induce a sudden urge to shower here as well.

4myboys, don’t even get me started on haircuts. I’ll take fixing our daughters’ hair any day of the week over trying to keep the boys’ hair in shape. I also have so many different hair textures going on: 1 super curly, 1 wavy, 2 Asian with very course hair that I still haven’t quite figured out how to trim. I trim their hair myself as when I take them all even to the cheap place it is about $75.

*faint* forget that so I have clippers, but it takes me a good hour plus and not w/out some fussing and fuming to go along with it (the fussing by the boys and before it is all said and done, I am sometimes the one fuming).

What would we do w/out our boys??? Life would be boring and smell way too good!

I have six boys and I am just laughing out loud. My oldest is 20 and when he turned about 17 he started taking showers twice a day. As soon as the oldest two hit 16 or better my water bill skyrocketed. Now my oldest at home is 12 and he will come home with the bag of clean clothes from boy scout camp 🙂 my 8 yr old desperately needs the deodorant and my 6 yr old has the wiping problem (suzukimom I know how you feel!) I have been trying to figure out what is wrong but maybe this is more of a common problem than I thought. And yes it seems boys and men are just gross between the burps and the pooting around here the girls need a day out 🙂

Yep!   I think the reason they don’t have to many books on hygene is because everyone knows they will grow out of it sooner or later.  Why bother trying to push it.  They won’t take a shower, change there underwear, change their clothes, brush their teeth, wash their face, comb their hair, or put any kind of soap product on their bodies unless you are giving them the death sentence. Even that doesn’t always work.

   I am glad I am not alone in this endeavor. 🙂    Now we could talk about shoes!   UGH!!! brand new shoes and they smell like boy!  !000% stinky boy.  Not sure what I should do about those. Did I mention they were new???

   Maybe I should load them down with old spice. 🙂  I had to smile @ the mention of old spice.  That brought back memories. Every year I bought my dad something old spice.  One year it was one of those mugs of shaving cream you make foam up with a brush.  He loved it.

   I had to laugh about the shaving razor also…. Because just this evening my son 8 was asking me how to shave his face.  My other son chimed in that he knows how to do it because he has been doing it for years. My husband and I had to laugh…. Years????  Where were we?  It was one of those plastic razors that came in a scooby doo shaving kit… Razor is plastic and doesn’t have a blade! LOL..   So anyway, I had to explain tonight that my son doesn’t have whiskers yet so he doesn’t need to shave. 🙂   Maybe we will let him practice since he may develop those premature hairs on his chin…..   That maybe the only way to get him to wash his face… 🙂

  What I have learned tonight.  1)  Let children play with razors and shaving cream to get a clean face.

   2), Let kids play in the swimming pool and sprinkler and wash the car and dishes often. Provide a bucket and some super soaker guns just to make sure that the bubbles come off when you dump out the water. 🙂

3)  Hide favorite stash of clothing and underwear when they are in the shower so they don’t put them back on. 🙂

4) Let your daughter remind the boys how stinky they are every day to encourage them to smell themselves.

5) start giving out deoderant like it is candy at an early age.

6) require less clothing when going on camp trips

7) Hold your breath when opening up camp clothing bags upon return.

8)require shampoo and soap at every bathing, use pump action dispensers and do a smell check to see if they used them

9) Ones attitude does reflect ones hygene and that even the best of mothers can’t do much about it.

#10)  Boys will be Boys no matter where they are, who they are they won’t change until they are interested in girls!

      Thanks for all the laughs girls.  I sure did enjoy reading about all of your wonderful boys

 BTW  When I was in High School there was a classroom of kids that gave a jar full of toe nails and toe jam to one of the teachers for Christmas… I guess they meant to send their very best!   🙂

                           BLessings!  

🙂  up late too huh?   glad I could make you chuckle..  Tehe he

Had to give everyone a haircut yesterday just so I could get them in the tub…   That was another one I forgot… 🙂

Oh my, this is so funny, I love the list. Five of my six kiddos are boys and I am right there with you all! Regarding underwear, I only recently learned my youngest layers them. So he is putting on clean underwear – over another pair. Or two. Oh my. We’ve corrected that. We did find that putting a “cool” brand of very fragrant deoderant – a different scent for each – in the stockings a few years back helped tremendously with the current teen and preteens, but we do still need to give shower reminders. One thing I noticed: at a certain age, grooming starts to happen independently, and it seems to correlate with a secret interest, perhaps someone at youth group. Just sayin’. 🙂

For those whose bathrooms start to smell like the restroom behind the gas station from all those boys, I mop the floor with a half-bucket of hot water with 1/2 c of vinegar and 4-8 drops of tea tree oil. When we had a puppy and I learned that vinegar neutralizes those wet accidents, it occured to me that it would work for those of boys as well.

I have digressed greatly from your original question, sorry, I have no suggestion as to resources either!

Blessings,

Aimee