Personal Hygiene for Kids
Personal hygiene is about taking care of yourself and taking precautions to attain a healthy body and immune system. Personal hygiene for kids is very important to make one grow into healthy adults. Every single day we come across hundreds and millions of germs and bacteria around us and more likely children. Teaching kids about hygiene and making them follow it up in routine is important to make them keep away from bacteria and various infectious diseases attacking him. Kids go out in schools or at park to play where they are more likely to come into contact with these germs. These germs are everywhere in the environment. A proper follow up of hygiene for kids can help a child keep distant from getting ill. Just telling and asking your child to do something is not enough to teach good habits to them. Kids hygiene requires a proper plan and a practical consistent basic demonstration. You can start with good habits and bad habits initially to make sure a child understands thing. Eating without washing your hands can be illustrated as a bad which is not good for an individual or children hygiene.
Importance of Personal Hygiene for Children:
Prevention is better than cure. Especially when it comes to children, there must be a strict check on them to make them follow a personal hygiene. They should learn how important and beneficial it’s for them to wash their hands and keep themselves clean. A good and healthy personal hygiene for kids allows them to:
• Feel confident about oneself.
• Keep one away from illness and various disease.
• Develop a healthy personality-being clean and healthy boosts ones image and help him to gain confidence.
• Maintain a healthy body image.
Top areas of physical hygiene for kids are:
• Brushing teeth and oral hygiene.
• Hair care.
• Body bath and overall hygiene
• Hand washing.
• Home cleanliness.
Explain Concepts of Germs and Bacteria:
Introduce and explain them the concept of germs and bacteria. They should know how they catch it, how to wash it off and what happens if it enters your body. Kids have this nature of acting upon things if they understand the concept behind it better. They should know the basics and the essentials of following a proper hygiene and its importance to follow it better.
Types of Personal Hygiene:
1) Oral Hygiene:
One of the most important habit that one should made follow is the oral hygiene because it begins with mouth. When a child is in his early age, you can assure that he brushes his teeth daily at night and morning but once they are a little grown up it becomes a little too hard for parents to keep an eye on a regular basis. One should brush his teeth for about a good 2 minutes. It helps to remove dirt and bacteria out to prevent from tooth decay. Also create awareness about having limited sugary and junk foods.
2) Hand Hygiene:
Hand hygiene for children is one of the most important part of an overall hygiene. Most of the bacteria enters into your body through mouth. To develop a proper hand washing routine, you must first create awareness and educate them about benefits of washing hands. As a child grows, teach him about steps for washing hands using a soap and water. He should also know what times is it required to wash his hands for example before and after washing hands.
3) Home Hygiene:
It is very important to clean your home just as you take care of your own personal hygiene because it is the place you spend most of your time and live in. Also if your child sees you taking care of and keeping your house clean he is likely to adopt similar behaviour which is beneficial for his own self and his surroundings. Remember a kids hygiene begins at home.
4) Food Hygiene:
What you eat is what your body absorbs and the energy you get from it is what drives you all day and impacts your overall health. It is important that children know which food are considered healthy and unhealthy food and why. An unhealthy eating habit could lead to diarrhea and food poisoning. Not only food, it is important to take proper hygienic measures while preparing or serving food. When explaining children about food hygiene it’s important to tell them about how bacteria spreads from their hands into food. Children must be told about hand washing rules before handling food, some of them are:
• Wash your hands with soap before handling food.
• It’s important to wash your hands with soap before eating food.
• If you are assisting someone in the kitchen, make sure your hands are washed and clean.
• Teach children to cover the containers with lids while storing food in the fridge or anywhere.
5) Nail Hygiene:
Nails are the biggest carriers for germs and bacteria. If you wash your hands, make sure you clean your nails and cancel out all the bacteria. Especially when it comes to your hand nails, they are directly connected to your mouth. Biting nails is also one of a habit most children develop. It’s one of the main reasons why most of the children fall ill.
6) Shower Hygiene:
Usually it’s up to a child personally if he wants to shower more than once a day but it’s usually done every other day and especially when a child comes home after playing or doing any activity which involves extreme sweating. Shower plays a very important role when it comes to personal hygiene for kids. A shower eliminates all the germs, bacteria and deal cells off from all over your body and makes one feel fresh and confident.
Set An Example:
To make a child able to follow your footsteps can be best done through following it by your own self. A child follows the people around him that are usually his parents and teachers. You need to maintain a proper personal hygiene for kids to maintain a habit within them of doing so. For example your child sees you wash hands before eating food and he is asked to do so then even if you are not there he would be following the rules.
Fun with Hygiene:
Children always tend to learn better things that incorporate fun activities such as games. The similar could be done when explaining to them about hygiene. Try teaching them while singing a song for example if they are learning to wash their hands, you could try with a poem or any song for 20 seconds until it’s done and this would boost their excitement level up and encourage them to learn hygiene for kids.
