Sunday, 2 April 2017

Teenager and hygiene


She's 13, #2 of 5, and this has been an issue for years and I'm at my wits end.Bottom line -- she's lazy about it. She's pretty and cheerful and smiley; don't picture Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club or a depressed emo kid or anything. She's also not just learning this; she underwent early-ish puberty and has the body and body chemistry of an adult woman. She's just so.damn.lazy. I have to nag her to wear deodorant. To shave her underarms. To take showers. To change her clothes. To wear pantiliners. Nag nag nag nag. We've talked about it calmly, we've talked about it not-calmly, her older sister has talked to her, all her siblings razz her for being stinky--she's impervious to all of it and none of it seems to affect her in the least. I've tried taking away privileges, and things help occasionally for short periods of time, but then it's back to nagsville.I consider it a problem because her stank, if she hasn't freshly showered, is so bad that it's hard to be in the same room. Body odor, unwashed scalp odor, and -- this is the worst -- dirty underwear odor. She has a lot of discharge, which I have advised her to handle by using pantiliners and putting on fresh underwear every day [I KNOW CRAZY RIGHT!?] but she's terrible about doing that and we can smell it. This makes her stepfather rather uncomfortable and it grosses me out too.If I let her she would sleep in her clothes and then wear them again the next day. She's worn pajamas to school under jackets before because she's been too lazy to get dressed. I just put a load of her clothes in the wash and there was one pair of underwear for the entire week, which tells me she's just wearing her dirty underwear day after day (I suspected from the aforementioned stank). We've talked about this before and I asked why on earth was she doing that and did she need help? Embarrassed because period stains? Undies don't fit and she needs a different brand? She's just confirmed, sheepishly, that she just wears the same ones because it's easier. suppresses urge to choke out childThe family standard for children who are past elementary school and participate in physically strenuous activities is daily showers. I have to nag and nag and nag her to do this; she "forgets" or "doesn't have time" as much as she can possibly get away with. She also sometimes will fail to wash her hair when she's in the shower because "she didn't feel like it."I like to discipline with natural consequences, but in this case that seems unduly cruel -- because that would be she can't ride in my car or be in the same room as me because I can't stand her stink. It would also worsen the problem because she'd just spend all her time in her rat's nest of a bed (another story altogether) instead of doing healthy things like chatting with me while we cook together. Don't want that.Help me, r/parenting. I am out of ideas and at my wit's end. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2opeIp5

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