Good Hygiene Habits To Teach Your Children At A Young Age

It is never too early to train your children. The importance of teaching your children proper hygiene habits while they are still young cannot be over-emphasized. Children need to know how to keep themselves healthy and clean.

It is for this reason that we share with you a list of good hygiene habits you should help your kids cultivate at an early age.

Let’s dive into details.

• Bathing hygiene

Children should learn to take a bath twice a day at a tender age – before and after school. Helping them do that at an early age helps them cultivate the habit up until adulthood.

Show them how to gently scrub their legs, armpits, groin area as well as the rest of the body. When they are older, you can teach them how to safely use ear care products to remove wax from their ears. Also, teach them how to gently wash sensitive parts of the body such as the face.

• Dental hygiene

Unfortunately, many children suffer from various dental problems before pre-school. To minimize the chances of this happening, you need to teach your child dental hygiene. From the onset of the growth of the first tooth, make sure you buy an appropriate toothpaste brand and brush their teeth. It is not until children reach the ages between 6 and 7 that they can brush their teeth without supervision.

Apart from brushing, teach them how to floss their teeth. Flossing helps to get rid of food particles stuck between the teeth that may cause dental problems.

• Sneezing and coughing

Germs, viruses, and bacteria travel fast. When you cough or sneeze, these germs travel further, increasing the chances of infecting others. So, from a tender age, teach your children to always reach out for a tissue every time they cough or sneeze. If they have no tissue, they should sneeze or cough in the crook of their arm.

• Handwashing

Handwashing is an integral part of ensuring hygiene for a variety of reasons. Regular washing of hands gets rid of germs and bacteria that may make us sick. It also prevents the transfer of these bacteria from one person to the other through shaking of hands and other ways of contact.

A young child should know when to wash their hands with soap and water. They should practice hand washing immediately after visiting the toilet, when their hands are dirty, before and after preparing or eating food, as well as after blowing their nose or sneezing.

• Hair and nail hygiene

Long nails are known to carry a lot of germs. As such, it is your duty as the parent to teach your children to keep them short and clean.

Hair hygiene is also vital. Teach your kids to wash their hair at least 2 times a week. For boys who have short hair, this should be part of their daily routine as they take a bath. Washing hair with the proper shampoo prevents dandruff and infestation from pests such as head lice.