Why Does Your Kid Not Want To Shower? How To Help

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Shower strikes and bath-time struggles are common with younger children and some adolescents. This behavior can be frustrating and embarrassing for parents since your child’s poor hygiene reflects on your parenting style. But why do some kids detest bath time, anyway?

Your kid might not want to shower because of sensory overload if they are very young. Older children may prefer playing fun games to self-care activities. In most cases, this behavior will resolve itself with time. However, not showering can indicate mental health problems, especially in older kids.

As with most issues with children, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to making your child like bath time. That’s why I’ve included a handful of practical ways to tackle this problem. Keep reading to learn how to get kiddo excited about shower time.

Reasons Kids Hate To Shower

Kids generally love to play in the water, which is why it can be frustrating when they suddenly appear to hate showering or bathing. Here are some of the reasons your child may love playing in the water but fight tooth and nail to stay out of the tub.

Baths May Feel Weird to Your Child

Showering or bathing can feel normal to adults. After all, this is something we have been doing all our lives.

But that’s not the same with kids, especially younger ones. The idea of getting undressed, adjusting to the cold temperature, and then stepping into the warm tub just doesn’t feel right for some kids.

Many kids will need time to fully accept this reality, so be patient.

Your Child May Have Other Sensory Issues

Sensory issues could be related to one or more of the following:

How the water feels on your child’s body. The tickling sensation of lather on the skin, getting water on the face, and the texture and feel of the sponge can be too much for some younger children to take in.
The water temperature, especially during extreme weather conditions. It can be difficult for kids to adjust to these temperature fluctuations, particularly without clothes.
The sound of the water as it fills the tub or drips from a faucet. That’s in addition to the whooshing sounds of flushing toilets. It even gets scarier for some children when their ears get wet. One moment, they hear muffling sounds, and the next, everything clears up. All of these can be confusing for a child who’s sensitive to intense sounds.
Some kids may be sensitive to certain scents. It can be difficult for them to put up with the scents, especially in their shampoo or bathing soap.

Your Child May Have a Nasty Experience in the Past

Getting soap in the eyes is never a fun experience for kids. Worse still, slipping in the tub can be such a horrible experience. If something significantly unpleasant happens during shower time, the experience can haunt children for a long time.

That means bathing can be a real struggle if your child associates this fear with bath time.

Your Child May Be Dealing With a Mental Health Issue

In some cases, poor hygiene in adolescents may have something to do with mental health problems, including trauma and depression.

Usually, most teens obsess over their appearance, particularly in public. You’re right to suspect that something is off if your teenager starts to skip showers or become reluctant about personal hygiene.

This reason alone may not be a major reason to worry.

However, not bathing can be a serious issue if your adolescent child or teen’s academic performance starts to decline or they show serious behavior changes. In that case, you may want to do more than say, “You can’t leave the house looking like that!”

It’ll be best to see a pediatrician to rule out any mental health problems, including bipolar disorder.

Tips To Help Toddlers and Preschoolers Enjoy Bath Time

Now, let’s get to the meat of the matter.

It doesn’t help much to know why your kiddo detests showering if you don’t know how to tackle the problem, right? So, how exactly do you help your child love bath time?

Introduce Fun Activities During Bath Time

Have you ever wondered why it can be difficult to get your child out of the tub sometimes, even after it took a lot of persuasion to make them step into the bathroom earlier? Kids love fun! And it takes a lot of effort for parents to stop children from doing an activity when they’re enjoying it. That’s because they’re too busy having fun to be bothered by any worries.

Because of this reason, you might want to think of creative ways to make kids associate bath time with fun.

Here are a few bathtime activities you might want to try:

Fill a basket with colored ice and let your child fish as many pieces of ice as possible before they all melt.
Get some glow sticks and balloons, turn off the bathroom lights, and let your child explore.
Let your child build fun towers using several sponges. Think of it like playing Jenga with a sponge.

That said, you want to factor in your child’s sensitivity when filling the bath with toys and decorating the bathroom. Many different patterns on the shower curtain or bathroom wall and plenty of colorful toys might be visually overwhelming for a nervous kid.

Make Bathing a Predictable Activity

Many children don’t do well transitioning from one activity to the next. And switching from playtime to bath time is no exception. However, you can make things less challenging if you let your child know what to expect.

Here’s what that means.

Let your children know in advance when to get ready for a bath. For example, you can tell them 10 minutes beforehand. It’s more effective to use an activity to give this heads up for younger kids instead of using time. For example, you can tell your child it’ll be bath time after finishing their homework.

Also, make the child know your next move in the bathroom whenever possible.

For example, instead of just rubbing soap all over their body without warning, you can say, “first, let’s clean you some nice-smelling soap, rinse you off with warm water, and then play with some toys!”

Provide a Bath Visor

Consider providing a bath visor to prevent soap from getting into your kid’s eyes, as this can also stop water from getting on your child’s face and putting them off. This small change can go a long way in giving your child a more enjoyable shower experience.

Bath visors are particularly helpful in reassuring children with nasty bath-time experiences in the past. Your child might even be excited to shower because it gives them the chance to wear their new bath visor.

Observe Any Sensitivity Issues and Avoid Them

Kids are different, and some of them may have certain fears or sensitivity issues that can make bathing quite a difficult experience.

Understand that children have vivid imaginations and sometimes blow things out of proportion.

For example, some kids may have a fear of getting sucked down the drain or slipping in the tub. Some of these worries may be irrational to parents, but it’s very real for kids.

For this reason, it’s important to understand any sensitivity issues or fears your child may have and do your best to avoid them. On the off chance that you can’t completely avoid their sensitivities or fears, make sure to give plenty of reassurance.

Have a Chat With Your Child About the Benefits of Bathing

In some cases, children can be ignorant of the negative effects of not showering. Instead of blaming them, take some time to chat with them and explain why bathing is good for everyone. Here’s the thing, though.

Don’t make this into a two-hour lecture!

Instead, turn it into a fun activity. You might even make it a fun question and answer session, where anyone with the right answer scores a point. Whatever you do, avoid lecturing your kid, but instead, chat with your child.

How To Improve Shower Habits for Older Kids

You don’t want to argue with your older kids about taking showers, as this method is very ineffective. If anything, you may end up making your child more defensive and even putting up more shower resistance.

A better approach would be to apply positive and playful parenting methods, as I’ve always emphasized in nearly all my blogs. Here’s how you can use connection-based parenting approaches to reduce shower strikes, especially for children ages eight and up.

Find Out Your Child’s Preferences

If you have a middle-grade child between the ages of 8 and 12, it can be helpful to learn their bathing preferences. Unfortunately, many parents assume their children will automatically enjoy everything they like. Of course, parents’ choices can and do influence their kids.

However, there’s a limit to this influence. For example, a study published in the Annual Review of Psychology suggests that parents’ influence on children may be weak, especially in out-of-home situations.

Here’s the point. Assumptions aren’t very helpful with kids, particularly when they’re old enough to understand their individuality and develop a sense of self.

Like many parents, you may not have the slightest clue about what your child likes or doesn’t like about bathing. Maybe you still think of your child as an infant who depends solely on your every decision. Don’t beat yourself up too much, even if this is the case. If it’s any consolation, many parents are in the same boat.

To help you correct this common mistake, take a few minutes to think deeply about the following questions:

Do you know your child’s preferred brand of bathing soap?
What time does your kiddo enjoy bathing the most – morning, noon, or night?
Does your child have any sensory issues, like being sensitive to temperature or noise?
Does your child seem to like a particular robe or towel after a shower?

You need to adopt a curious approach when trying to figure out your child’s bathing preferences.

Instead of handing them what you think they like or asking close-ended questions, a better approach would be to ask open-ended questions, as it’ll help you get to the root of the resistance.

In many cases, children may have difficulty pinpointing the exact reason they hate showering. But you can help them figure out the problem with patience, loving guidance, and using open-ended questions.

Motivate Kids To Bathe Instead of Coercing Them

Telling your kids that they smell awful or shaming them doesn’t do your child any good. If anything, that approach can mess with your child’s self-esteem and even create a huge gap in their relationship with you.

Indeed, parenting styles differ, and no one should tell you how to raise your kids. But if you want your child to love bath time, you must adopt a more effective approach.

One good way to do this is to find ways to motivate your child to take responsibility for their hygiene.

Here are a few suggestions you might want to consider:

Create a chart and call it a “daily bathing chart.” Reward your toddler or preschooler daily after they take their bath.
You can use the same chart for older kids. However, reward them once a week only if they shower a certain number of times a week.

If this idea seems appealing to you, consider varying the rewards and make sure to use positive rewards to reinforce good behavior.

Lead by Example

Telling your kids what to do is one thing. Showing them how is a different ball game. If your older kid doesn’t want to shower, the last thing you want to do is skip baths on weekends.

Let your children see you practice some personal hygiene and cleanliness whenever possible. This way, you’ll be a good role model, and they’ll get the message from your actions better than any words you could ever say.

How Often Should You Bathe Babies?

While we are still on the subject of helping your kids enjoy bath time, you might wonder whether it’s necessary to bathe your baby every day.

Babies under a year old should be bathed a maximum of three times a week. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends spacing out bath times for newborns and infants to avoid drying out their delicate skin.

Babies are born with a natural skin moisturizer called Vernix.

The whitish substance has beneficial anti-bacterial properties to protect your newborn’s skin. Bathing your baby too frequently may erode the Vernix, so it’s crucial to stick to this bathing recommendation if you have a premature baby.

How Often Should Older Kids Shower or Bathe?

Is it okay to skip out on the daily bath routine for older kids?

Older kids up to puberty should shower or bathe once or twice per week. Showing or bathing daily for children in this age group is also okay, but it’s usually unnecessary. Children that have entered puberty might need to bathe or shower more often due to increased hormonal body odor.

Sounds strange, I know, but isn’t it a relief to know that you don’t have to go through the hassles of bath-time struggles every day? There are a few caveats to this bathing guideline, though.

Children in this age group will need a bath as often as:

They get all sweaty.
They become dirty.
They swim in any body of water, such as a pool or lake.

Here’s something else to keep in mind. If your child in this age group is treating a skin condition, this bathing guideline may not apply to him or her. Instead, you should follow any bathing schedule a dermatologist may recommend.

How Often Should Pre-Teens and Teenagers Shower?

Adolescence comes with an entirely different issue – puberty. Children need to consistently build and practice personal hygiene habits at this age. Doing this will boost their self-image and confidence, and it can improve their overall health.

Pre-teens and teenagers should shower at least every other day. Good personal hygiene will prevent or significantly reduce body odor, acne, and smelly feet, regardless of whether they play sports or not.

In addition to this, you should encourage your adolescent to start using antiperspirant deodorant at the onset of puberty. To give your child a sense of inclusiveness, don’t make the idea seem like something you’re enforcing on them.

Instead, allow the child to choose one product they like from several good options. This way, your pre-teen will feel it’s their decision.

Final Thoughts

Bath struggles usually don’t last forever, so, you don’t have to worry too much, even if your child hates to shower. Remember to use the redirection approach. Using bath toys your kid enjoys playing with can reduce fears your child may have about getting into the tub.

If you have an older child who hates showering, keep an eye out for behavior changes. It might be necessary to make an appointment with a doctor to recommend the best course of action.