Here’s one great reason for teaching our naturally grubby and grotty kids the golden hygiene rule of hand washing: they’ll spend less days feeling miserable and having snotty little faces like glazed doughnuts.
And that’s no glib claim. Research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US has found that frequent hand washing with soap and water can reduce the number of illnesses and infections in children under five years old by at least 50 percent.
While it can be hard getting the littlies into good hygiene practices, it’s widely believed that habits learned young are more likely to become ingrained and stay into adulthood. Like teeth-cleaning and covering mouths when we sneeze and cough, hand washing needs to be part of everyday life for healthier, happier families.
So how can we get our kids to wash their hands without our naggy voices starting to sound like white noise to our littlies?
Tips for mums and dads
1. Make it easy, comfortable and safe to do
Little ones may find it hard to reach the taps and basin easily. So provide a child-safe stool or step they can use.
2. Make it a fun experience
Until the habit is firmly in place, use fun-looking soap pumps or brightly coloured little soaps, maybe in fun character shapes, that are just for them.
3. Come up with a hand washing ditty
Scientists know that to get rid of 90 percent of germs we need to wash our hands with soap for about 20 seconds – that can seem like an eternity for a tot. So why not come up with a special song or nursery rhyme to help pass the time. If inspiration fails, a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday should do the trick.
4. Set up a hand washing chart
There doesn’t have to be a prize at the end because kids will just love ticking off the box.
5. Introduce some art and craft
Sit down with your child and create a poster that shows them the steps of hand washing. If they can’t read, why not draw pictures, cut out photos from magazines or download images from the internet.
6. Model good hand washing behaviour
Little children are visual and kinetic learners – they learn best by seeing and doing. They also love to be big kids and copy what Mum and Dad do. So make sure they see you wash your hands at key times, and talk about what you’re doing.
7. Repetition rules
Youngsters learn best also through repetition and reinforcement – so don’t think if they get it right the first time, the lesson is learned.
8. Talk about germs and illness, but in a balanced way
Kids need to know why they’re washing their hands – that is, to get rid of germs that can make them sick – but it doesn’t need to be a horror story that gives them nightmares.
9. Create rituals and routines
Kids respond to routines so make sure they know when they should be washing their hands – for example, after going to the toilet, before eating, after playing with pets
Some interesting facts and research
Here’s some valuable information about why we need to wash our hands – you may or may not want to share it with the offspring.
- According to research, the simple act of hand washing reduces the risk of getting a stomach bug by as much as 47 percent.
- Between two and 10 million bacteria lurk between fingertip and elbow.
- Damp hands spread 1000 times more germs than dry hands
- The number of germs on fingertips doubles after using the toilet
- Germs can stay alive on hands for up to three hours.
This article was written by Fiona Baker for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best parenting resource for teaching children healthy habits.
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Our 4 year old son is a creature of habit and thrives on routine. Hand washing is now ingrained and he doesn’t forget to do it. All the steps mentioned here were used by us parents to teach him and it definitely works. Key definitely is consistency though. Never say …oh that’s okay no need to wash for now, and then the next time say that he needs to do it. We, as adults, need to role model too.
Wow, this was another great read, e have always taught our kids about washing their had properly, whether it be after using the bathroom or before eating food but I did not know about the damp hands, I will be teaching my kids to make sure they have dried their hands thoroughly after washing.
We are going to get sticker chart for washing our hands which should hopefully make it a more fun experience. I should also try the cute soaps idea as well to see if this helps.
We have really been quite fastidious with our now 6 year old with hand washing right from a young age. We have explained how important it is and why. We make it a habit to wash hands before meals, if we go into town etc we wash our hands when we get home and ALWAYS after the toilet! 🙂
One thing i have found that works well is routine and repetition…by constantly drumming in the washing of hands and not touching anything dirty seems to have worked for both of my kids… at school they were introduced to the happy birthday singing while washing hands…although it worked for bit, it was not long lasting…
One of my kids is great at this. She sings happy birthday to herself three times. One to soap up, one to rinse and one for drying. The other is a bit of a nightmare and never remembers. Despite her sister even trying to coach her. I might get her, her own soap – that might help!
This is a great read. I am very into hand hygiene. With nurse training it was absolutely amazing after washing hands putting them under the UV light and seeing what showed up after our 5 moment’s of hand hygiene. I mean to touch a door handle etc so many germs on everything we touch. And for kids they are sharing same environment etc with other unwell children in class its so easy for them to get sick so hand hygiene is a big thing. I also absolutely love sanitizer if they are in a hurry sanitiser is equivalent to five moment’s of hand hygiene.
Omg thank you for this article, the damp hands thing grinds me so much! I hate the feeling of damp hands and I’m always telling my kids that the germs are still present if they don’t dry their hands adequately. I can’t believe that damp hands spread 1000 times more germs than dry!!
Great ideas for getting little children to remember to wash there hands. Reinforcing hand washing is so so important as this article says about it reducing the chance of getting a stomach bugs by about 46 % which we all don’t want in our houses. I still have to say to my kids have you washed your hands after touching the animals etc sometimes they do need reminding.