To tell my daughter that she stinks

[Rinkytoo]

My 10 y/o DD like many preteens has started to get a whiff of body odour about her after having exercised or being hot. She has all the tools and encouragement ie. soaps, deodorants as well as the encouragement/reminder to use them.
However she complains about having to have a shower or bath - we ask (demand when necessary) that this is done every other day and she always always complains about it. Yet when she’s in the shower or bath she has no issue with being in there and we usually have to hurry her along.
It’s a pain in the ass having to nag her to shower every other day and listen to her complaints. She currently only washes her hair once a week (I do it for her) and that is a chore because she complains about that too.
I remind her to apply deodorant daily because despite it being on the sink where she washes her hands and brushes her teeth, she fails to use it unless asked to and only puts it on under duress.
I’ve been nice, explained why it’s important and all the rest of it but there is no improvement.
The problem seems to be that she doesn’t care. I’ve told her that I think she needs to go and wash because I can smell that her armpits smell of BO but she doesn’t care. “So what if I smell? I don’t care.” I’ve explained the importance of self care and self respect and that other people will start to notice as well because I have, but she just retorts “I don’t care if people do think I smell? Why would I care what other people think? If I don’t care that my armpits smell then why should I care if other people think I smell?” Those comments clearly aren’t done out of embarrassment because she doesn’t then go on to wash or make any improvements. She honestly would never ever wash if it weren’t for her dad and I telling her that she has to.

WIBU to tell her that she stinks and it’s disgusting? Ive tried the nicey nicey ways, the educating etc, but I don’t know what else to do to make her realise the importance of self care and personal hygiene. Problem is I feel like she still wouldn’t care!

That’s what I would hope our DD would do, but so far not! I have previously told her that she needs to wash her armpits because they smell and she’s said she knows they smell, she can smell it too, but then still complain at my insistence that she wash.

There are comments re anti-perspirant on this thread, but when this is used, i suspect the body's lymph system is compromised. It's natural to perspire, and to block this action could lead to health problems. Wash twice a day if you feel you need to, but do not block the body's functions by using anti-perspirant.

Could you tell her it's disrespectful to those around her to smell. That it's not ok for her to impose this smell on others and yes her friends will still love her but she's being unkind to them.

The problem is transitioning from being dry, clothed (and smelly) and sitting on the couch to getting up and going to the bathroom, undressing, and getting wet.

It's pure inertia (and a big dollop of laziness).

Also remind her that how she feels now is not how she’ll necessarily feel in the future. So her opinion of things when she was 6 is different to how she thinks about things now she is 11. When she’s 14 she’ll be thinking differently than she does now. Even in 6 months she’ll have changed. Thats what humans do, we change as we gain more information about life.

She needs to see that her thinking on subjects can evolve and change and just because she doesn’t care right now, her future self might care very much and be embarrassed by what her current self is doing.

is there anything she’s fallen out of love with? Or anything she now sees as babyish?

She has phases and this I don’t care about sweat smells is a phase too. Maybe explain that as you get older you do care more about what people think. So even if she can’t care right now perhaps she could consider her future self who may not want to be known as stinky winky, ever.

My daughter was exactly like this at 10 but I just kept repeating that personal hygiene is non negotiable, it took her starting her periods to finally feel that she actually wanted to have a shower and not it's just her daily routine. I still have to remind her to wash her hair and she has a strange aversion to deodorant but I'm getting there! So keep going with the positive reinforcement, she will get there.

Why should teachers do that? Their role is to teach. It's the parent's role to teach about washing and cleanliness.

Our DC have seen us shower daily. They were bathed or showered daily. It has to be made habitual. We had discussions about the importance of being clean from day dot. They were expected to use anti-perspirant from about 9. Both had early ish puberties. They were told they had to be clean so as not to start smelling rather than to stop it.

I have worked in HR for decades. Every couple of years a manager comes with an issue about a staff member's hygiene because others are complaining. I usually tell them to say "I have noticed and wanted to tell you before anyone else mentions it." Then to discuss regular hygiene, freshly laundered clothes and bedding/towels, any problems at home (issues with housing), would an OH referral help.

Every time it happens I wonder what the person's mother/parents did and why they didn't take responsibility for their child's cleanliness/health, and whether they were just dirty so and so's. It's a fundamental life skill.

See it. Smell it. Sort it.

I appreciate some dc/young people are not well parented.

Don't want to be "diagnosing" off one thing and know others have mentioned it but a couple of my friends with ADHD really struggle with this even as adults. Is there anything else about your daughter that might suggest this or something other neurodiversity?

I mean it’s not impossible, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel like even if she did have ADHD, she still needs to wash.
I’m not dismissing you’re suggestion, I’m grateful for your input, but I wouldn’t want to use that as an excuse for not to take care of her personal hygiene.

And yet here is OP doing many of the right things, and persisting with it, so it's clearly not as simple as you thought, @RosesAndHellebores.

Teachers also have an important pastoral role. Whether or not a teacher should be involved here, that pastoral role is a vital part of teaching.

I'd check if she has any particular issues with the shower, is the bathroom cold, is she worried about something etc. and try to solve that first as PPs have said.

If it's not that, find something she wants and she can have it when she's had that shower and washed properly. Phone, internet, screens/gaming, TV, pocket money, whatever matters to her. Be calm and matter-of-fact - from now on you need to shower and wash fully every day/every other day, no quibbling, non-negotiable. If you want X (eg internet) you can have it as long as you do this, if you shirk the shower it's gone until showering resumes. Then enact, sit back and wait. It takes my extremely stroppy teen DD about 3 days to cave.

This is why my son has a bath every evening, to hopefully avoid arguments like this when he actually needs a wash every day. It will just be normal routine for him hopefully.

Maybe take her shopping for shower gels, bath bombs and get into different hair products and stuff to make it fun and girly. When she says why should I care, reply that it's not nice for others if she smells.

ND wouldn't be an "excuse", OP, but it might throw light on why she is behaving like this, and strategies to improve things may be different. (If relevant.)

It sounds like you've tried every approach you can think of! ? So now maybe you just leave it and see what happens?

None of us wants to see their child upset when we can avoid it - but so many times we have to stand back while our children learn how real life works ...................... and then we just pick up the pieces afterwards.
It's what we do.

Sometimes, children don't learn from what parents say - but they learn from what other people say

And that's ok because parents can't teach children everything. Children also have to learn for themselves.

Think of it more as: a parent's job isn't just to teach. It's also to support when things don't quite work out as your child expects

We spend years teaching and showing our children 'how to behave', ' what's acceptable ' and 'how to relate to other people'

bur then we have to stand back and let our children figure out things for themselves ................... and still be there in the background in case they need it

Maybe now is the time to let your DD learn for herself? - I know 10 seems a young age, but, on the other hand, she seems a very determined and strong-minded girl and ready to learn for herself?

So maybe now is the time to allow her the space to let her learn things for herself ...................... whilst always being there for her when she stumbles in life.

Being a parent is never easy!!

**edited for spelling (hope I got them all!)

@Rinkytoo @tpeas My dd does have ADHD, autistic traits and dyspraxia. She is clean. She had to work harder at organising it. For example at uni she was hopeless with laundry and would buy a cheap pack of Primark knickers and socks if she got behind.

@TryingAgainAgainAgain that isn't the case because the op used to insist on daily baths/showers when her dd was younger but this has now slipped to every other day. Yes teachers do have a pastoral role Both of my DC teach. One at university and one at secondary but that pastoral role does not trump or replace the parents' role. And reliance on teachers can only prevail if the teacher is beyond reproach in all aspects of their lives.

I feel for you, it would bother me. However as she approaches puberty, she will change and you won't be able to get her out of the bathroom. Everything will be fragrant, including her hair. It really does happen like that. Right now she will not be the only smelly one in her class at school. It isn't nice and you are right to remind her of it but kids can be like that. Trust me, it will not last.

I would tell my child if they stink. We have a rule to shower before getting dressed every morning, do it or face the consequences... better you tell them or someone else will.

Sorry if this has been covered but have you tried different types of deodorant? One of my dds (ASD) prefers the stick type deodorant to a roll on or spray, for her it's partly a sensory thing. Also, you could ask her to put non-talc baby powder under her arms after a shower.

Yes we’ve tried different types of deodorant but the showering shes more averse to than the applying of deodorant and that’s a much bigger battle!

Could be PDA, there may be some strategies online to overcome this. Pathological demand avoidance.

might be something useful here https://www.reddit.com/r/PDAAutism/comments/14gm4zp/pda_and_hygiene/

I was like this as a child, but I didn't say I didn't care. When I hit puberty things changed for me and I started to care, but it was too late for the other kids at school cos they bullied me relentlessly for having awful BO. Stuff wasn't great at home so I was trying to deal with that and my personal care wasn't my top priority.

Please stand with her in the bathroom if you have to, but don't let her go to school like that. She has to start to care.

Now I'm the opposite and shower every single day, the only thing that stops me is if I'm too ill to do it, and I will only skip one day.

I have ADHD.

Does she understand that the way she smells to herself is very different to how she smells to other people?

most people wash regularly so she might not realise quite how offensive another persons strong BO is and only thinks of it as the mild smell of yourself which isn’t as offensive to your own nose. Sort of like how your own farts or toilet smells are bad when they are your own but disgusting when it’s someone else’s.

have you asked her how she would feel being forced to be sitting next to someone who smelled disgusting to her?

…pastoral role does not trump or replace the parents' role

No one has suggested that it does, @RosesAndHellebores. Perhaps you misunderstood.

And reliance on teachers can only prevail if the teacher is beyond reproach in all aspects of their lives.

What a bizarre statement.

I was very lucky when my son hit 10 and began to get smelly, I just said no one will want to sit next to him and that one thing worked, he immediately took daily showers, cleaned and flossed his teeth etc...
I know that is probably unusual, so it was very fortunate.

I think this poster raised a valid point, in light of what you said Im not sure you could genuinely think it 'obtuse'.