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Dear Miriam,
My tween is starting to stink! But she still thinks that only occasionally showering is sufficient, and she’s incredibly resistant to my suggestions that she needs to bathe more frequently. How can I get her to an age-appropriate level of hygiene without embarrassing her?
Signed,
Don’t Sweat It
Dear Sweat,
One of my favorite parenting books is called The Explosive Child by Dr Ross Greene. I’m going to paraphrase pretty liberally here, but he talks about three options for dealing with disagreements with strong-willed children. Path A is setting strict boundaries, dictating what must happen without regard for the child’s feelings, and issuing punishments for a failure to comply. Path C is letting the child do whatever they want. Path B is where parent and child work together to find solutions that meet their needs and lead to greater understanding of where each is coming from.
Path A in your case would be creating and enforcing a shower schedule of your own design without discussing it with your daughter, and enforcing it through withholding other privileges until she complies. Path C would be letting her decide when to shower, and basically letting her stink. You, my friend, need to live and breathe Path B.
Talk to your daughter. Talk to her about puberty and changing bodies. Talk to her about sweat and deodorant and the importance of taking care of herself. And listen, like really, really listen to her questions and concerns. Have these conversations when you’re on your way someplace and can avoid eye contact. Have these conversations in small doses and work your way up to the parts that feel hardest. When you’ve reached your limit of talking, supplement the conversations with books, which can be left discretely in your daughter’s room or read together at bedtime, depending on what works best for her.
And then come to your Path B together. Maybe she starts by adding one shower to her weekly schedule but agreeing that you can remind her to wear deodorant if she forgets. Maybe once a week she gets to take a bath with fancy bubble bath. Maybe Path B is that she’ll shower every day, but before every shower she’s allowed to complain for 5 minutes. The important thing is that, together, you find a workable solution that takes both of you into account. Forget whatever you want to say about how this is for her own good – this isn’t only, or even mostly, about hygiene. It’s about family harmony, and Path B is your way to get there.
Be well,
Miriam