My 9 year old son.....?

Question

My son will be 10 in August. We are having a hard time trying to get him to understand the importance of every day hygeine. He still needs help brushing his hair, sees nothing wrong with putting the same underwear on after showering, does not see the importance of having neatly trimmed fingernails or matching clothes and lies about brushing his teeth. We have tried to explain to him that these are things that kids will make fun of him for in the future if he does not start caring about his personal appearance. He says that we are overreacting and that no one cares. Any ideas on how I can get him to understand or is it a moot point with a 9 year old?

Answer 1

he's only 9 - give him a couple of years when he starts getting interested in girls

Answer 2

Start taking away privillages, such as playing with his friends after school, going to the movies or the mall, ect. Tell him only big kids get to do those things. And since he is not willing to take care of himself, he has to stay home like little kids do. After awhile he'll realize he's missing out.

Answer 3

We have the same issues with our 10 yr old / now 11 year old.  I continue to have to remind him of the same things.  We tried positive rewards for doing it, negative results, and everything in between.  He is getting a bit better with just my continual nagging, so perhaps it was just the age.  Good luck and let me know if you find anything that works.

Answer 4

At his age he might not care much what people think (those were the days huh?). I would just drill it into him for the next couple of years, soon enough he will get an interest in girls and start to pay more attention to his appearance.

Get him his own set of soap deodorant and so forth next time you go to the store, and make a bit of a big deal about him being grown up enough for these products.

Keep a schedule of hygiene, make him take a shower at the same time every day, trim his nails every week and so forth.

Answer 5

ok, there is a difference between putting on a pair of dirty underwear and not wearing matched clothes.  One is a sanitary concern and one is not.  There is no harm to him on wearing mismatched clothes, so let that slide, but draw a line with the dirty underwear.  My daughter is almost 6 and wears the most ridiculous looking stuff to school (eg: she will want to wear a skirt, but it will be too cold, so she will put on sweatpants and then put the skirt on over it).  Guess what, all the kids in her class love her.  The rule in our house, and yes, it took some convincing to get my wife to agree to it, is that it must be clean and weather/situation appropriate (eg, no bathing suits to church). Other than that, wear what you want.

Answer 6

well wen my brother was nine he used to lie about brushing his teeth... and what we used to do was make him go to the bathroom and actually watch him brush his teeth.

I would recomend making a game out these small things like when bathing you could pretend to be pirates etc.. this is a good way to encourage your child beause kids cant refuse to play games so he should give in.

If not  show him pictures with people with horrible teeth and bad hygine and tell him that if he continues with this rutine he will one day look like that. That should open his eyes but if not i would wait a couple of years because to be honest hes only nine years old and not many children are worried about how they look like at that age but if after some time he still continues with his unhygenic lifestyle.

Answer 7

bring a cute girl over to the house.  He'll start brushing his hair and taking baths.

Answer 8

I think that's a typical boy issue.  My oldest is 8 and he has done the same things.  I've threatened to stand in the doorway or clean him myself.  He doesn't want that, so he usually gets it done.

Answer 9

Let him learn the hard way.