If your child is not into appearances....? And studying?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Yes and yes. IME anyway. |
Anonymous
|
My brother is a slob and my nieces and nephews are slobs. My husband and I care a lot about appearances and our kids are super clean cut.
It's on the parents. |
Anonymous
| I have two girls so it's somewhat easier for me to require the shower. No one is singled out. It's matter of fact. Shower every other night. Hard and fast rule. When they whine or talk back I stay matter of fact, house rule. "It's the same as wearing a seat belt. You have to shower and brush your teeth." My DDs want to wear bras so we haven't had to deal with that but I'd take the same approach, put on a bra. No judgment, no explaining there are creeps out there looking at your jiggly boobs, just put on a bra. Just as if I were telling her she couldn't go out of the house without a shirt. |
Anonymous
|
Deodorant, daily shower, straight As.
Acne treatment if it's really bad, but not before. Bra if she needs one. What are you doing as a parent if not teaching those things, I wonder? Just driving kids around? |
Anonymous
WAs that necessary? Who said they weren't doing this? And since you have it all worked out, exactly what do you do to enforce/require acne treatment or deodorant or bra-wearing? |
Anonymous
|
When it became time for a bra I said very simply, "Women wear bras. We put on underpants and a bra." We buy two new ones every school year and I buy sports bras on sale or at TJMAXX.
Showering FINALLY has started to be a self driven thing at age 14.5. Until now, she showered after sports practice which I made sure took place every other day. Face washing. Sigh. Still working on it. She is interested in makeup so I am emphasizing the need to clean one's face of makeup and to prepare one's face for makeup. It is a process. |
Anonymous
Most of us have endured abused daily, then. 
|
Anonymous
|
Hygiene: I never had any hygiene issues with my kids. Who are this teens who don't want to bathe or brush their teeth? I checked my DD for dress code violations in middle school when the male teachers always seemed to be checking the 13 year old girls out and reporting them. I once inadvertently bought her a sweater with a marijuana plant on it (I thought it was a cactus, lol!) - for some reason, she always had trouble finding that on school days!
Academics: I would intervene if lack of effort was resulting in a C - although is it possible that a little more effort could lead to a B without extra tutoring? Is the C because of not doing homework? If so, simply doing the HW would probably help a lot. My 15 year old doesn't put much effort into school and gets A-/B+ grades with some As so I leave him alone - he could get all As, but I don't want to be that mom who complains about a B+ He wouldn't be content getting a C; he can kick it into gear when he needs to. |
Anonymous
| My poor DS was gross in late middle school/early HS. He played sports 7 days a week and always smelled and looked a mess. I admit it - I was a nightmare for him. Every single morning I would run through a list before he walked out the door - shower, hair, teeth, deodorant and lotion (for his acne). By junior year he finally learned to get through the list and stopped smelling and hair was finally brushed. He survived.... |
Anonymous
One of my kids has severe ADHD, and forgets hygiene, and all those things. I have to remind him all the time until it becomes so routine that he does it without thinking. This has worked in the past for learning practical life skills as well as academic ones. I know this may sound boastful and unpleasant, but I have had to train a deeply forgetful and inattentive child, who has memory as well as other issues and learning disabilities. I can tell you that iron willpower works every time. You have to be strong enough to remind your kid 100 times a day if necessary, every day, even when you're sick and tired. To work schedules around so that your kid's routine is set in stone so that one gesture follows another unthinkingly (and then when the routine is established you can relax). In the case of motor and sensory-challenged children, to make the gesture with them first, hand-over-hand, so they can feel what's the right way of doing it. Building routines is much easier if done daily: for example, showering once every two days is harder to remember than showering every day, etc. All these things are what I learned as the parent of a special needs child, but it can be applied to all children. |
Anonymous
This is the same for me. I think parents - especially moms - need to be less afraid of speaking frankly with their young teens about hygenie issues. Keep in mind, these are kids who have never really done hygiene and at times really don't know what or how to do it even if they want to. And then there is the fear if they do it, they will be admitting they are growing up. There is no need to be mean but there is no need to pretend your child is not changing. It's not a one time convo. It is something that you have to gently bring up over and over. Things like acne. It's crazy to me that people just assume their 11/12/13 yr olds just "know" how to treat acne. How are they just going to know that? It's easy to think they would google or youtube but most kids are going to be iffy on whether they should follow the advice and then how are they going to get the products are do the routines? Where there parents comment? Their siblings? Will they be even more embarrassed? Be kind. Gently tell your child that acne is something that requires consistent routines and treatments. That getting into a routine for it takes a few tries but then it becomes easy and second nature. Help your kid set up the routine. This takes time and effort and sometimes a thick skin for parents who are going to get rebuffed. |
