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As I mentioned in last week’s post, bathrooms are for more than just potties. Brushing teeth, washing, drying and styling hair, showers/baths, and washing of the hands are all big bathroom activities that can take some time and patience.
When adopting older kids it would be helpful to know what their bathing habits were from before. Your child may not have ever seen or been in a bathtub before. Showers can seem like a dark and lonely place to spend time in as well. If your child had to carry the water for the family, chances are they did not bath regularly. A lot of developing countries have toilets, but no toilet seats, so even sitting on a toilet seat is odd to the child and they may lift up the seat and sit on the rim since that is their familiar routine. The may even be used to a latrine or a “Turkish Toilet” aka: hole in the ground.
Hair care products and soaps might be unfamiliar to them. Mita and Enu put cooking oil in their hair, thus they couldn’t quite understand why I turned blue when they overused the expensive Carol’s Daughter oil I bought! Everything was different for them.
If your older child was adopted domestically or through foster care there will still be changes for them. We really have to look at this through their eyes.
Impulse control, or lack of, can be an issue with older kids. I found that if I gave Mita or Enu a bottle of soap to wash with that the bottle would be gone in one or two baths. I had to squeeze shampoo, conditioner, body wash into little containers to eliminate the waste. I actually gave all of my girls a “cubby” filled with their own toiletries that are clearly marked with names on them. This helps me measure who is doing what with all the products. It also helps me separate the products per the child’s needs. Meg and Elle use a different kind of hair product. I found out the hard way that hair gel for Mita and Enu makes Elle’s hair look like I dragged her through an oil pit!
They all use different brushes as well and those are marked, but still get lost. I don’t want you to think this is a highly organized process, because even though I try, the bathroom closet is still a mess. I have posted a picture of how I organise the girls’ bathroom items. It is a hall closet right outside the bathroom. I may not make it in to The Container Store catalogs, but if works for us!
This does help me save products(money), monitor who is wasting what (you would be amazed how much soap one child can use in two minutes) and see who needs more help with hygiene matters.
In an effort to make full disclosure, this has not been the easiest of topics for me. I struggle with my kids hygiene, hair and bathroom habits. I want them to look good. I don’t want them to look like “orphans” who are not taken care of. I don’t want people of color to look down on me and think I do not know how to care for my kids. It’s a pride thing for sure, but I think there is more to it than that. They need to know how to care for themselves. I need to learn the balance of what is really important and what I can let slide.
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Photo Credit MandyW 2009
