I’m not sure what kind of advice I can offer because my daughter hasn’t hit that stage yet and I am sure that you have tried everything but I find that if I need my daughter to do something about her hygiene I usually need to be there to ensure that it gets done.  For example, for the longest time she would never wipe herself after peeing or a bowel movement.  So it would smell or she would get really bad rashes.  When she would get the rashes I would remind her that it was caused by not wiping herself properly.  So whenever she would go to the bathroom and be done, I would ask if she wiped herself.  She would say no.  I would send her back to wipe herself even if there wasn’t anything to wipe anymore.  Before she left for school, I would remind her to wipe herself at school and I would ask the teacher to remind her discretly to wipe herself if she went to the bathroom.  One day she came home from school and was so proud she said” Mommy I wiped myself today!!” That was the best feeling.  So I stayed on top of reminding her and when I could see that she was doing it on her own I would stop telling her.  She still sometimes forgets to wipe and only then do I remind her but for the most part, it seems to be under control.

Maybe when she is home she may need those reminders everytime she goes to change her pads.  It may be a while but one day it will click as I find with kids with ADD/ADHD they are extremely intelligent and once they have learned something it’s there for life

I hope this helps!

Mystikal:

  Thank you so much for your response and I will put your advice to practice next month.

  You are absolutely correct, our children are extraordinarily intelligent and they never stop surprising all of us parents and teachers alike.

  Thank you again for your help!

I haven’t faced that exact issue yet, but bathing regularly is already a battle at 7 (has been for a few years), that I am sure we will face bigger issues as time goes on.

I would suggest written posted reminders in every bathroom and in her room.  Something as direct at “put used tampons/pads in the trash” and as Mother of Five suggested, remind often.

We still have to remind about hand washing after bathroom trips, but with signs in the bathroom and reminders, we are reducing the number of times she has to go back to wash.

Tamilyn

OK I haven’t hit that problem yet but soon. My oldest will be 12 in january. All my kids are small and maybe she weighs 65 pounds at the monent. I hope she will remember to take care of herself! She is looking foward to getting it. i don’t know why but OK. I even caught her trying ot sneak a pad to camp ” just in case”. i got mad at her but in hindsight I was rather amused at it. i guess I should have let her
My daughter has very poor hygene as it is. She is unkempt often. She gives me a hard time over brushing her hair and she doesn’t always wash it. Its frustating to me since the school social worker tells me about it. She also picks her nose often. its so bad the other kids are aware of it and then to not paly wit her. She did have a great class this year. None of them were ever rude to her they would just politly tell her they were busy or had to do someotihng else when she came over to paly. Sometimes they would include her.  But she does have social issues. Especially when he is NOT on her meds or the dosage is not right.
my second child who also had ADD is not like that. She takes care of herself pretty good. Although she doesn’t always brush her hair. Luckily for her she can get away wit hit. Straight hari looks OK brushed or not:)
I personally have really really short hair because ican’t be bothered with it.  i also have one more daughter who is 5 and has none of theses isiues. She tries ot brush her hair. But sometimes I’m bad and don’t brush it.

ok~ we HAVE hit this time in our daughter’s life and she is the same way! She’s 15, ADHD/ADD and leaves her (used) pads laying on the floor, partially in the trash and many times, still in her underwear when she takes them off (such a nice surprise when you go to do the laundry). The only way I can describe it (b/c I have a hard time making ‘sense’ out of it all!) is that b/c of the ADD, she’s just disconnected from the moment. I’ve been discouraging her from trying tampons b/c all that comes to thought is that she will forget to remove them at some point and end up with a serious bacterial infection. But, in good ADD/ADHD oppositional form, she insists on using them because her “friends use them”. The same thing with daily hygiene and flushing the toilet—she puts off taking a shower b/c she has homework or wants to go to bed and the toilet is almost NEVER flushed….She doesn’t seem to be embarrassed about these things and I can only think that its a result of her unawareness or disconnect from the moment. I can’t imagine a teenager not being aware of these things (considering they are normally overly concerned with their appearance) and I doubt she is doing all of this on purpose!  It’s embarrassing to me (even if its not to her) when she has her friends over and they see all this stuff. Anyone else experience this to the same degree as me?

Since one can only go into so much detail on message boards, I don’t know what all you have and haven’t tried, but personally, I see this as a pretty serious area, as it does affect others in the household.  I think with my DD I would approach it from a two pronged approach:  Reward and Punishment at the same time.

I would sit her down one more time and explain that since she has started her period, she is going to be dealing with this pretty much monthly for the next 40 years, so she needs to figure out what needs to be done.  I would go through the expectations step by step and have her show me that she knows exactly how to dispose correctly of a pad, etc.  Then I would explain that as long as she is not doing it appropriately then the consequence is x (Direct- having to do all the family’s laundry, for example so noone else has to worry about coming into contact with her soiled underpants, or Indirect- No TV or video games until the situation is corrected).

On the other hand, once she has appropriately handled her period for two consecutive months, then she gets a new outfit, or a special dinner, or a day out with mom, or something special, a makeover or new hairstyle.

In our family, we have a handful of rules, a very few rules, that are considered non-negotiables.  I would make this one of the non-negotiables, as it has to do with health and hygiene and body fluids.

ok MollyMS…I get what you are saying. However, this is an awareness issue, not a defiant “I’m going to do this because I want to annoy you” issue. Parents have much bigger fish to fry with the issues that ADD/ADHD bring to the table. Am I going to make a federal case about her menstrual pads? Not likely. I have tried many things to help my daughter remember to do things in the proper way. I continue to remind her that she needs to clean up the bathroom (and yes, I’ve given her many ‘tutorials’) and to work harder at showing respect to us and our home through picking up after herself. But I figure, eventually, a friend will make a striking comment to her about the hygiene issue and only then will it turn that light bulb on over her head. I choose to save my energy for dealing with the bigger issues like staying on task with school work, keeping herself safe and getting through the high school drama that affects ADD/ADHD kids so much. You know, saving the big guns for the BIG battles??