To have refused girly night with DD?

[JustAMum2023]

I suspect IABU, but am just so frustrated.

So as not to drip feed, here is the backstory:

DD14 has zero, and I mean ZERO interest in personal hygiene and appearances. Showers require bribes, she refuses to wash or brush her hair, skin is awful, loads of spots and blackheads but she won't use face wash or even wash it with a flannel. She puts on the the first thing she lays her hands on, regardless of the weather or situation. I don't insist she looks "Instagram ready" at all times, but showered, teeth cleaned, hair brushed and clean and tidy clothes is reasonable, surely?

So, in an effort to encourage her, the other night I said lets have a girly night tonight, showers, hair washed and conditioned, then we'd do face masks and manicures and pedicures, have some treat snacks and watch a movie. She went off to shower, all good. Comes out, having flooded the entire room, hair dripping wet, CLEARLY not shampooed and says shes ready for facemasks and treats. I said no, not till you've washed your hair and she hit the roof. Says she IS washing it and I'm just a horrible mum. I refused to budge, said no treats till her hair is washed AND she's sorted out the flooded bathroom. She went to her room and stayed there for the rest of the night.

DH says I should have backed down and I'll have made her worse now. I feel terrible. So WIBU? or am I right to insist on basic hygiene?

Goodgrief82 my two diagnosed children wanted assessment, and felt positive about it.

My dd doesn’t. How would you suggest I force an unwilling teen, or how would you suggest they assess her? How on Earth would we go ahead?

And why would we want to? It’s for her, and her identity? When she’s ready she will probably want to explore it? What would we gain by forcing her to accept her likely neurodivergence before she’s ready?

but my god. You still go ahead if you “strongly suspect” something.

well i couldn't exactly manhandle my teen into the car and force them into an assessment. It took us a long time of talking, building up trust, working up to talking about possible diagnosis, using strategies both of us researched and eventually the appointment was made.

And as they told me at the GPs when we finally went to get a referral, there was no way they would have talked to a 14 year old who had been forced like that.

so you can get off your perfect parent high horse. We are all different and approach things differently. You do you but don't hoik your judgy pants up so high you'll get thrush.

What OP needs here, and what she is getting, is good advice to working up to getting her DD to trust her a bit more so they can discuss next steps.

I was like this at her age, looking back I can see now I was clearly seriously depressed during my teen years. My parents pretty much ignored the situation apart from the once in a blue moon comment about needing to brush my teeth. I got better once I started work at 16 and felt less depressed.

Looked on sites for the elderly you can get large wet wipes to wash with. You could warm them slightly so it isn't cold on her skin.No rinse shampoo is used a lot with bed bound patients or those who don't want their hair washed. I used it in my 97 year old mother rub it in dry.with towel. I did warm it slightly. District nurse was very approving. Cheapest is on line with hoots do check volume with Amazon as some are very small. Maybe a strip wash at the sink at the sink or a bowl inheritance bedroom lavender oil in the water and baby talc.

Goodgrief82 there is no way a referral for an assessment would be accepted for a teenager who didn’t want one. I suspect you know nothing about this.

There is something bothering your daughter I would suggest laying off the hygiene for now op,hard as it may be,and talk with her in a neutral place where she feels happy and secure to talk and there's no interruptions.🌈

I wonder if shes feeling like you giving her normal parental rules and direction, shes interpreting as you criticising her and not understanding how hard shes finding the rules around personal grooming.

Does she have long hair? Maybe a short haircut would be a gamechanger for her if she could just put a bit of dry shampoo most days rather than always having to wash and brush it?
Is the bathroom warm enough so that its not a hideous sensory nightmare going from cold to hot. From dry to wet to damp?
Could she have most of her clothes kinda similar, so easy to swap one pair of leggings or joggers for another, or one sweater or top for another.

I think the idea of a spa day started off well, but you ended up scaring her off again when you made it clear that it was a trick and not about you wanting to spend time with her.
I think autistic kids do so often have sensitivities around cleaning themselves and its not always simple to find ways that work for them. She needs to understand that you are not criticising this stuff because you think shes bad or not trying, or that you dont like her or accept her, but that there are certain things we all need to do to get along in life with other people, and one of these is keeping yourself to a minimum standard of cleanliness, so that you smell ok and dont appear dirty to others.
That if she hates the idea of showers or hairwashing, then what does she suggest? Skinhead? Pixie cut? Bubblebaths?
Find what she can cope with and help her understand that you want to help her in life BECAUSE you love her and want people to see her potential, and not miss all that because all people notice is that she hasnt washed

not everyone's issues are the same though, are they? That's the thing with neurodiversity!!!
Exactly - so why are people saying that is the issue when it may not be.

because until and unless OP (with or without professional or outside help) can get to the bottom of why her DD is resistant to washing, a lot of the tips, tricks and strategies used by ND people might help. My DD was a very late (in her 20s) diagnosis of, among other things, ADHD, and i do recognise some of the traits in me. So using lists and so on, help me a lot.

Maybe she just doesn't know what to do.

Kids aren't born knowing how to wash fgs.

Have you ever explained it in simple language? Watched youtube together?

I had terrible skin and greasy hair as a teen because no one ever showed me what to do. I was 25 when I got up the nerve to ask a female friend how she got her hair so nice and clean and shiny. 28 before I learned what exfoliation was!

You don't have to turn this into a battle ground. Simply having a celeb or whatever who she likes the hairstyle of would be a start. Help her don't condemn

My Dniece - 15- has the same issue with hygiene and has just been been diagnosed autistic.
She says the shower is too loud and she can’t cope with it. May be worth talking to your daughter and asking whether a shower is painful for her physically and mentally?

I think perhaps you should apologise to her OP, even if she didn’t want to wash her hair. It would have been good for her to do moisturiser and face masks etc. Baby steps. Apologise and give it another go tonight. Could you compromise with dry shampoo some days. Or take her out and let her pick some products she likes the look and smell of? Does she have a decent tangle teaser that won’t make it unpleasant when brushing wet hair? I imagine she hates brushing it as if only wetting hair the brush is likely dragging through.

Note my son was tested and has an Asd diagnosis

but the op is posting about the dd not wanting to shower the much bigger issue to address (which is heavily if not 100% linked to the shower issue) is the dd not wanting to be assessed. The support that would drop out of that and possibly meds would address the former.

so the focus is all wrong.

the op needs to be single minded about the assessment. Involve the school or if possible, private, then the op can reassure the dd that entirely confidential if that’s what she’s worried about (that is what my ds was concerned about)

I think while you would have better appretiated than she has got into the game and put some effort in, its also diffucult to always react the way you ideally want as you are just a human like anyone else. A exhausted one in this instance so please dont beat yourself about it.
Hope you find a way forward and have a good relationship with your daughter.

Two more thing that I think have not been mentioned.
One - apart from MH, can she be physically tired to do all those things?
Two - about the showering itself. I found lots of people soap their whole bodies which is not neccessary and makes the skin feel dry etc. Also generally using a bar of soap might be a better experience then a shower gel/body wash.

Is the bathroom warm enough?
Having a hair wash in a cold bathroom is uncomfortable.

This was my first thought.
~Stepping out of a shower or bath with long hair dripping water down one's back isn't pleasant.

I hope she does eventually want to be basically clean, for her own sake.

I got these for my daughter. She often injures herself, has to keep the dressings dry so can't have a shower. But I can at least manage to keep her clean while I can't shower her.

She's severly autistic she used to scream if I showered her until she was about 6. She was okay in the bath. But I know others with autism who have said it used to feel like there was lots of pins being pushed into they're body at once.

You could try asking school if they could do something with the whole class. I remember they did this when I was at school as there was a few in our class that were a bit smelly.

Sorry I forgot to add the pics.

I used to be a bit funny about showers and now I'm the opposite!

Things that helped
I wash my hair separately, leaning over the bath as I hate the feel of wet hair on my body
A warm towel and warm bathroom
Music in the shower/bathroom
Nice products
Getting slightly addicted to hygiene routines on YouTube (yes it's a thing!)

@Wetblanket78 thabks for those photos, I’m going to try the shampoo and conditioner on my hair wash hating boy.

Daily showers aren’t necessary if she can do flannel at the sink wash instead some days. Hair wash twice a week - we insist on that with Ds14 otherwise he’d leave it for weeks. Suggesting a soak in the bath and hair wash there might help.

But piles of wipes being thrown away weekly is not great for the environment- what’s wrong with flannels?

Lots of sympathy here for having to deal with a 14 year old. I breathe deeply several times a day at the moment.,

@Maray1967

Flannels are wet and soggy, and involve getting your hands very wet (a horrible sensory experience when the rest of you is dry). It took me 32 years to be able to wash my face with a flannel, and even now it's one of the cloth ones from Cheeky Wipes which is a thinner fabric so less soggy.

My DS really struggled with getting in the shower but loves it once he's in, he's only 7 however so we still supervise (he's autistic).

However I've just read someone else say is she actually too tired and it sparked something - how are her joints etc? I have hypermobility syndrome and sometimes having a shower, washing hair etc makes every part of my body scream, the heat is difficult and I end up shattered - sometimes the thought of it and all the steps is too much when I'm feeling bad. Just in case that explains anything for your DD.

Tbh, I would have accepted what she had engaged with and pressed on with the pamper night. When you are dealing with neurodiversity, you need to learn to accept as much as the person can give at that time and reward it with happy things. That is the way to help them achieve such big goals ( and it does seem as though maintaining a healthy self-care routine will be a big goal for your DD), small steps and big rewards. It's a happy coincidence that it will also bring great bonding opportunities to you and your dd too ( something I take every opportunity to have with my DD 14). All the best OP.

Yep. Similar hatred of flannels here too. I also can’t reuse them if I’ve used them once because that also gives me sensory ick, so it would just increase the amount of laundry I had to do/energy use. A wet flannel on my face is a hard no.

If you have a disability, you do what it takes to get the job done, the environment does not get prioritised over accessibility in my book. You can be environmentally aware if you wish to be in other areas, if that’s important to you/a family value.

But you could have a stack of them, 6 or 7, and chuck the used one in the wash with the next load and have a dry one each day? Doesn’t really add to the wash load and solves the problem. Will cost way less in the long term than wipes.