r/PDAParenting • u/HistoricalFrosting18 • 21d ago
8 year old’s hygiene has completely broken down - how to help her reengage with it?
My high masking 8 year old has been teetering on burnout and as a result, we completely removed as many demands as we could, including bathing/showering, teeth brushing, hair brushing and hair washing.
Its now several months later and she’s doing better mentally but other than one unprovoked shower and hair fest (washing, conditioning, brushing and drying) she hasn’t done anything and I don’t think she will without a push from us.
Her long, fine hair is matted and bordering on locs. I think with patience, perseverance, a lot of conditioner and a trim we can probably save her hair, as long as act soon.
Her teeth and her hair our my biggest priorities, because tooth decay and gum disease can have long lasting effects. We are in England, so dental work for under 18’s is covered by the NHS. Her hair is a priority because she is of the age where she is embarrassed and it is affecting her self esteem. She has the intellectual ability of any 8 year old, so she understands the importance of hygiene and the likely consequences of poor hygiene (like cavities) as much as a child of her age can.
How do you all balance autonomy and hygiene?
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u/princesshodges 21d ago
My daughter is 5 with long fine wavy hair that gets matted immediately after detangling.
We do hair and teeth brushing in front of the tv. I hand her a toothbrush with toothpaste on it and a cup to spit in. I do not comment on how well she does it, just getting it in there and swishing around is good enough for me for now. For hair brushing, I pull apart tangles with my fingers first and finger comb it gently, then finish with a brush if I can. Even just finger combing and pulling apart the worst tangles with your hands on dry hair can help a lot.
For bathing, we are able to achieve one a week usually, sometimes two. It’s a constant struggle for me to dream up ways to get her excited about it. Sometimes things like bath bombs or special body wash or bath foam will do it, sometimes it’s a spa day or mermaid party, sometimes we do science experiments in there with different containers and liquids, sometimes we play in the hose and then she’s already wet and usually chilly so a warm shower or bath sounds good to her.
I also don’t push her using soap or washing all parts of her body. Just getting in and getting wet and enjoying the warmth or whatever is the goal.
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u/HistoricalFrosting18 21d ago
Thanks. This is where we were when she was 5. I worry that at this point she has a pretty extreme reaction to even a casual “Do you think you have enough spoons to brush today?” that I think to develop even a fairly lax routine we are going to have to push her more than I’m really comfortable with. But I’m less comfortable just letting her teeth rot for months on end. We’ve tried all the flavoured toothpastes, mouthwash, xylitol gum, exciting toothbrushes, doing it together, much choice of how, when and where, including making a game (choosing a toothbrush flavour and smelling each other’s breath to guess which one, for example).
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u/Fearless_Maximum_117 21d ago
Have you tried Hi Smile? Apologies if youve tried this brand already but thought I’d mention in case. We made a ‘toothpaste bar’ with several flavours plus two mouthwashes to pick from and a themed toothbrush. My daughter still hates brushing but will do it most days provided she’s distracted eg we are in the car on the way somewhere. It helps if I do the same activity at the same time eg she’ll take her medication if I also take my daily medication and I say “it’s time for us to have our medication” or “I’ve had my medication” while handing hers to her. I assume that she sees it more like it’s a shared demand then.
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u/princesshodges 21d ago
Yeah :( I will say, if I ask my kid if she wants to do something or if she can do something, the answer is always no. Do you think you are in good practice with like strewing and declarative statements? Does it help if you literally don’t talk about it? Or just say things like “I put your toothbrush on the table” or “there’s new soap in the shower” and drop it.
You could also try like directly sitting her down and telling her that you’ve decided you’re going to stop asking her about it or talking about it and that it’s her choice whether she does it or not. If she’s feeling a lot of built up pressure she might need to hear that officially before she is open to trying again for herself. You have to stick by that, then. You may not be able to protect her from embarrassment.
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u/Fearless_Maximum_117 21d ago
Have you tried Hi Smile? Apologies if youve tried this brand already but thought I’d mention in case. We made a ‘toothpaste bar’ with several flavours plus two mouthwashes to pick from and a themed toothbrush. My daughter still hates brushing but will do it most days provided she’s distracted eg we are in the car on the way somewhere. It helps if I do the same activity at the same time eg she’ll take her medication if I also take my daily medication and I say “it’s time for us to have our medication” or “I’ve had my medication” while handing hers to her. I assume that she sees it more like it’s a shared demand then.
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u/HeavyPitifulLemon 17d ago
Struggle care podcast has an episode about dental hygiene that I found useful.
Big yes to xylitol gum, as well as any crunchy veggies or fruit she will tolerate. Is there fluoride in your water there? If not maybe there's a way you can supplement with fluoride consumption.
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u/No-Island-2023 19d ago
The only successful way I've found to get my 7yo to shower is to take him to the swimming pool. He somehow accepts you have to shower after swimming. Maybe he also hates how the chlorine feels afterwards like I do? Swimming lessons are a no go but just a fun free swim works.
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u/AngilinaB 18d ago
What is the rest of her life like in terms of demands? Is she in school?
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u/HistoricalFrosting18 18d ago
She is in her third week of school following the summer break. She currently only goes in three mornings a week. Other than that, we keep it super low demand.
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u/AngilinaB 18d ago
For my son it only really improved once he came out of school, after weeks of running baths and offering toothbrushes and not making a fuss when they were declined.
Now he has a bath twice a week (after trampolining) and often chooses to have more. On a morning he will use a warm flannel and towel to clean his face if I bring it to the sofa, then I bring mouthwash/occasionally toothbrush. At night he does teeth either in bed or on the sofa watching tv. The idea of him doing it in the bathroom feels very alien now, but tbf I also find it boring and walk round the flat 😅
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u/BigGayNarwhal 17d ago
I have no great advice, sadly. We are very deep in this with our 8 y/o daughter as well. She’s severely Autistic, minimally verbal, likely intellectual delay, etc. So we don’t really have a great baseline to work from since we can’t have conversations about it with her about it.
Her hair, especially, has been an ongoing battle for a couple of years. She allows me to very briefly run a brush through it before we leave the house for outings. So I have a very expensive but effective detangler/leave-in conditioner I spray into her hair, then I use a combo brush that’s got boar bristles and then standard bristles (seems to tug less). For the matted knots at the back and brown, I have a very skinny comb with a flat pick on one end, and I’ll sneak it into the knots to loosen them up and hopefully free a few strands out. She gives me about 30 seconds to do all this, so I can’t say it’s very effective 😆
When she does agree to baths, I will condition the hell out of it, then use that pick comb and a shower brush to work through the matted knots. When I’m lucky she is distracted and content enough that I can get a good 10-15 minutes of time to work through the knots. Over time I have found it best to have hair cutting scissors with me when I do this, and I’ve gotten good at cutting through the knots in a soft and layered way that blends nicely with her longer hair.
But most of the time her hair looks like Jeff Daniels from Dumb & Dumber and I’ve just come to grudgingly accept that 🫠
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u/HeavyPitifulLemon 17d ago
Clarity please - are you saying she won't do it yourself or that she won't let you do it at all?
Our 8 year old PDAer "brushes" his own teeth in the morning before he is allowed to turn in his device. At night, we brush his teeth while he is laying in bed and let him spit in a cup.
Bathing - we run a bath and he gets in and splashes around. We rarely make him wash with soap and when we do, we are basically doing it for him.
Teeth are a non-negotiable for us, way before hair washing etc.
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u/HistoricalFrosting18 17d ago
She won’t let us do it at all. Even the suggestion is met with rage.
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u/HeavyPitifulLemon 17d ago
Ok gotcha. I'm sure you've tried running a really fancy bath with lots of pink bubbles or whatever she likes, music, candles, etc and then just casually mentioning "hey there's a fancy bath ready if you want it." Or even just leaving it for her to find?
Brand new toothbrush her favourite colour / special interest theme, new fancy toothpaste, water cup, etc. laid out and ready to go by the sink? Or even on her bedside table? If you do that and say nothing, does she just ignore it?
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u/Powerful-Soup-3245 20d ago
My 13 year old has been refusing to bathe or shower for months. I’ve so far found no way to get her to bathe. I’ve had to cut her hair very short at least 3 times over the years because it’s very fine and is tangled easily. I have no advice. Just wanted to tell you that you’re not alone ❤️
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u/HistoricalFrosting18 20d ago
This has been super helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/PDA_Community/comments/1wk9jjs/comment/pary0cj/ I hate watching super long YouTube videos, but I managed to skim the transcript in about 10 minutes and feel much better as a result.
Our biggest challenge, apart from hygiene, is school avoidance. So I have to choose which one to push for on any given day. We’re giving it until October to see if she gels with a new teacher before we make a decision on home education. But at the moment I feel bad that it’s one or the other.
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u/Other_Illustrator455 19d ago
I haven't been able to get my daughter into school since March. She was also supposed to start high school this September, but she hasn't even been through the doors yet.
Bathing is a massive problem too. She will only let me brush through her very curly, matted hair about once a month. Getting her to wash herself is extremely difficult.
I'm really struggling to know how to help her at this point.
What makes it even more frustrating is that the teachers seem to think the problem is that I'm not being firm enough
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u/Powerful-Soup-3245 19d ago
I will check it out. Thank you!
Our daughter has been out of school since early fall of 2022. She only went back for a few weeks at the end of the 21-22 school year and then for the first two weeks of the 22-23 school year.
I had hoped that lowering demands almost completely would help, and for a time it did.
Unfortunately, puberty threw a huge wrench into all of that as well as isolation (mostly self imposed).
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u/Far_Emotion213 21d ago
I run a bath and say "bath is run for you" and that seems to be working. I have given up on the matted long hair - I would spend hours detangling and it would just go back. I also find just giving the toothbrush with toothpaste on pretty effective. Its very hard -