How best to deal with a mess-making, soap-dodging teenage girl?

[MadreInglese]

DD (almost 14) is generally a lovely well-behaved girl (well, outside the home at least!!) but DP & I have notice recently that she's almost reverted back to being a small child with regards to hygiene - we're having to remind her to shower, wash her hands, brush her teeth/hair, tidy her room (but that's another thread!!) and pick up her stuff that she leaves EVERYWHERE.

She just seems to get lazier and lazier and nothing we've tried is working really. Nagging eventually works but sounding like a stuck record (and being ignored!) just totally winds me up. She is currently on no TV or internet and the next level for me is confiscating her phone and grounding her, but then what?

Once she's in the shower she'll be in there for hours singing to the radio and lathering herself in lovely smelly products but getting her in there is a nightmare. I did tell her in annoyance one night that if she wanted to not shower and to stink all day then that was her choice, but it's me that has to put my hands in the yacky washing (would making her do her own washing now be to victorian?), and who will be paying for the ££££££££££££££ of dental work she needs when her teeth rot out of her face, and who she comes crying and wailing to when she can't brush the giant knot out of her birdsnest hair that she couldn't be arsed to brush properly for weeks.

Aaaarrrggghhh I know we could have much worse issues to deal with but she's really driving me nuts at the moment. I'm sick of being cross with her all the time - this morning I slipped on the stairs on some pile of folders she left dumped because she couldn't be arsed to take them to her room - luckily I was carrying a washing basket and not 5mo DS!

Any tips or are we destined for yearrrrrrrrrrrrrs of this? Softly softly sweetie darling helpful approach or hard and tough nagging with punishment or just leave her in her own filth? What has worked for you?

hopeful bump

My DD is 13. Though she is generally slovenly about both appearance and neatness during the week, she does transform like a swan when she is going out to meet mates or at the weekend. HOURS of prep go into her clothes, make up and hair, which is waist length and curly.
However apart from that she has to be frogmarched into the shower during the week. She plays huge amounts of sport but doesn't seem to realise that it makes her PONG. I have had to be very blunt/rude to her about this. Like yours, once in the shower, I positively fear for the future of our water supply she is in there so long.
Ours works on pocket money bribery. I have never bothered with the tv/laptop/phone confiscation thing (mostly because lack of any of them would make my life more difficult for homework/communication). But she HATES losing cash - she hoardes it to then donate to those well known charities Starbucks, TopShop, Body Shop, Primark, Jack Wills.... So loss of it would impact on her weekend social life in town with the girls.
I've pretty much given up on the issue of household tidiness EXCEPT again by linking it to cash (you can tell we are a terribly mercenary household).... She has to hoover the entire flat (thus having to pick the stuff up off her bedroom floor), empty bedroom bins and clean her bathroom (ideally after she has used it) every week to get the top 50% of her pocket money. And I am v strict about this.

oh yes jinx, when off to meet pals she'll spend an age on clothes and hair faffing!

pocket money here is also dependent on chores & bedroom tidyness, hence she's had none for about a month now

nice to hear we're not the only ones though

Oh and I have lost count of the cash I have shelled out on deoderants/anti-persperants.... 'Sexy ones', basic ones, ones (like Mitcham) for 'problem perspiring'...put them in every room and bag. Just to try to get her to use them. I mean what was the point of me washing her clothes if they were going to be put on a mucky bod and the armpits not even treated. It almost makes me hope that she gets a boyfriend (must not say this in front of dad), just to see if that helps. Although that could obviously lead to other problems making the current ones look miniscule....

Lol jinx, I know! Small mercies and all that..........

Sooooo recognisable!! My stepdaughter has very strong BO and her grandmother, dad and me keep on buying her deo's etc and hinting at it to no avail... unfortunately she lived for years with a mother that doesnt wash, is proud to 'be natural', actually once said 'we are soap-dodgers and proud of it', has waistlength armpithair and has greasy hair as 'hair is self-cleansing'....try turning that around!! My husband and his mum despair as they are proud Jamaicans who are very hygienic (really is a cultural thing i ve noticed, 2x a day showers, Dettol in the bath...) and my stepdaughter just doesnt notice/care. All good and well but like MadreInglese said, I hate washing her filthy clothes/underwear and when she wants to cuddle up.....
haha, it s actually quite funny, its not the end of the world...just wait till they have a boyfriend! xxxxx

another sympathiser here!!

Don't think DD is a real soap dodger but I can only conclude she isn't using enough deo? She showers for a while and does get wet/wash hair. Have started throwing her in a nice bubbly bath again though.

Clothers are so pongy after 1 day wear they sometimes need 2 washes and after DH and I left the kids with gp for 2 nights over half term the BO was terrible .

I cant work it out- must be a puberty thing because (confession time) if i didn't wash I wouldn't properly honk for days given clean clothes each day. Ditto if no deo used - moderate sweat and smell only.

Even DS who does sport lots etc doesn't stink in the same way- honest sweatiness yes but not stinking- though I do recall a phase a couple of years ago when DH made him change out of school uniform before going to choir because of the smell when he had him in the car on the way so there is hope.

I really, really think it is puberty hormones on my DD anyway. I also firmly believe she really doesn't smell it for herself (unbelievably). Sport doesn't seem to make it any worse than when she's not playing (netball 6 days training and matches a week) - it stays at a pretty constant level. I just feel sorry for the teachers (she's at an all girls school)....

You have described me exactly when I was that age and still a bit now.

I couldn't explain to anyone why I hated getting in the shower, but would stay in there for hours once I was in. I think it was just general body consciousness at that age and being aware that I wasn't particularly into clothes and hair and make-up, it's almost as though I was reacting against it and going the other way, IYSWIM?

Maybe be a bit gentle with her, I can remember being really upset when my Mum told me I smelt or that I didn't care about my appearance. It just felt like the final insult when it felt like I was so worried about the way I looked, the size of my legs, the size of my nose, whether I was too tall, or too fat.

I don't know if that makes any sense

I read the OP thinking this is my 14 year old dd...exactly the same. In the top groups at school for all her lessons, very amiable and easy going BUT I have to tell her to change her knickers every day, brush teeth, flush the loo after doing a poo, put snotty tissues in the loo...the list is endless. I hav e tried everything to get to clean up after herself, but wonder if this I some kind of rite of passage every teenager goes through. I know I did and I am a clean freak now!

i have a daughter who would rather hide dirty knickers than put them in the feckin laundry! Does my head in!!!

Ooh, ooh I have one of these mnaky creatures too!

Not funny really though, is it? I have a DD (12) who is an utter midden - has to be forced into the shower, will happily go to school with her face and teeth unbrushed, leaves a trail of destruction around the house (I can literally trace her movements) and lives in a pigsty of a room.

Her only real interests are Claires (although apparently she's getting too old for that), the American crap she watches as she assumes her position on the sofa, Isaac at school who appears not to have noticed her existence (although you would think her pong would be a clue) and her pals. Drives me insane.

Surely one day she's going to notice that greasy hair and cumpled clothes with toothpaste on them (aka her school trousers today) are not really going to cut it?