How to help DS remember to brush his teeth...

The usual parental screaming …

Make it more time-consuming and irritating for him to not brush his teeth than to do it; when leaving the house, check his breath, and if it’s not fresh and minty, drop everything and back to the bathroom. He won’t worry so much about school days, but this will really irritate him on the way to sports etc. If being sent back makes him late for school, wake him up five minutes earlier each day to make extra time. After getting sent back a hundred times or so he should connect that it’s quicker to brush first.

I just read the best article on ADHD and it talked about token systems. I’d say at age 10, if there is a behavior you want to increase, set up a reward system for compliance and take away a point when he forgets.

Janis

janis, And then does get to buy some reward with the tokens? That makes sense, gets me somewhat out of the loop which is what I want!

Have you tried a simpler visual?

The toothbrush on the counter(try a bright color) when he gets up in the morning-you’ll have to do this before he arises;it cant be there all the time. Your check for compliance is not asking/smelling but peeking to see if that brush is still there(less involvement)-he should put it away IF hes brushed his teeth(in theory)

I know a mom who swears by this-also flipping the med bottle upside down when theyve taken their medication-I dont think your guy is on meds but…same principal

Toothbrushing is a huge problem for my 12 yr old and I plan to start the toothbrush system Wed, first day of school

If it doesnt help, I like the chart idea.

Rewards? Staying up later is a biggie around here(2 older brothers) Picking a restaurant for a lunch/dinner out. Hes doing aquariums now and a new plant/ornament/fish is always good

Its harder when they’re past that trinket/sticker stage, I know. You kind of have to give a token for compliance and then have a larger reward for X number of tokens.

What are you thinking for rewards? I may need some new ideas before I raise the stock numbers for PetSmart ;)

BTW the aquarium has been an excellent hobby for him. Responsibility, independence, and he is even looking up stuff on the internet and READING by choice.

I read an article on power struggles. It was about a child who refused to fasten his seatbelt when in the car, so the mother had the idea of letting the child be the safety monitor, and so the child made sure everyone put on their seatbelts, thus giving the child some power and compliance in putting his own on. I thought the idea might be applied to the teeth brushing scenerio. Otherwise, I usually brush mine with my child. Misery likes company.

We are having the same difficulties with our 10 year old daughter. Not only does she forget to brush her teeth she also forgets to wipe herself after going to the toilet, forgets to flush, and forgets to wash her hands.She also forgets to put socks on when putting on her shoes. She will even forget again when she is on her way back to the bathroom to take care of those tasks. I’m starting to feel like a broken record. We know from testing that althought she is chronologically 10 she has the mentality about that of a 6.5 to 7 year old.

Until we recently got the psychological test results back, I used to tell people that she had the attention span of a goldfish. Now I feel bad about saying that…

Hey, we all say and think things like that on occasion. You have to keep your sanity above all else! My mother had Alzheimers and I joked all the time-sometimes you laugh so you dont cry

Have you tried a picture schedule like mentioned?It could be a big help and digital cameras have made that possibility so much easier. Or even videotape her or someone else getting ready in the am and show it to her each morning before she begins

Meanwhile, I forgot my own advice to leave out ds’s toothbrush this am and ended up turning the car around two blocks out as I noticed the lovely orange teeth!

PERHAPS I NEED A PICTURE SCHEDULE

A picture schedule won’t do me any good at all; if it’s been in the same place for a week I literally do not see it.

I manage my own things by training habits.
From the first day my dad installed his own seatbelts in the car, before the automakers were forced to (showing my age again) the car did not start until people were buckled, period. I did the same with my daughter from birth. Now we feel uncomfortable in a car without a seatbelt; habit has taken over.
In the morning, bath, brush teeth, comb hair, get dressed, downstairs, thyroid med, always in the same pattern; habit has taken over.

I read somewhere that if you do something for seventeen days straight it is a habit and will stay with you permanently (unless you deliberately break it by developing a new habit of course).

The big trick is to stay on the child’s case for long enough — at least three weeks, longer in harder cases — to make that habit-formation pattern work.

Oh, I don’t know. I think some children are immune to the idea of habits. I still tell my children every morning (7 and 11) to go upstairs to brush their teeth after breakfast. I have been doing it for years longer than 17 days!! And if I don’t—well, they don’t seem to feel the necessity for it.

I think the only true cure for not remembering to brush your teeth is braces. My daughter became an avid tooth brusher when she got braces at age 11. I think the social consequences of food stuck in her braces motivated her. Now the braces are off and the habit has been engrained forever, I hope.

My 11 year old son will need braces in about a year. I am hopeful about a toothbrushing cure!

Beth

Keep nagging(I put it in the same category as did you wash your hands, did you take out the garbage, did anyone walk the dog???), until there is a motivator like the cute girls in 7th grade who might notice you-funny how now my 13yo son brushes teeth and combs his hair on his own.

I have an 11 yo son who has had the same 5 chores for the past 5 years. Yet somehow we still have to remind him to do them. The only motivator we have been able to find is money. He gets paid his allowance based on the chores he has done. We put a little hash mark on the calendar for each chore, then at the end of the week I add up the marks and pay his allowance. If he is trying to save up money for some special something that I won’t buy him (usually a video game, however this time it is an expensive bike) then he gets frustrated with himself for not getting the money.

This puts the responsibility on him. I don’t have to yell or threaten. I sat him down, explained the system and made sure he understood what was going to happen. He only gets reminded to do his chores once, and it is a general reminder. I don’t ask did you feed the dog, did you clean your room, has the trash gone out? I only say, “Chores?”

This works well for us, you can give it a try or modify as you need. Good luck!

One of the parenting philosophies we’ve grappled with in our house is whether we should pay for chores or not. In theory I think they should contribute to the home in an age appropriate way whether there is money involved or not. But that’ s a much less convincing argument than cold hard cash!

Beth — I think you do have a habit going, just not the one you’d prefer! The kids wait until mom nags, and then brush their teeth. I wonder how they would react if you weren’t there, or if you didn’t say or do anything one morning, or of they’re overnighting at a friend’s. The question is whether they’re dependent on the reminder, or just used to it as part of the morning ritual.

One thing that may possibly work is fading out the reminder. Start by saying “Forget anything?” and waiting until the *kid* comes up with what’s missing. After a while a little “ahem” and after a while longer just a mother look as they approach the door. This is a maybe - maybe not issue, depending on how resistant they are to the idea of tooth-brushing, but it doesn’t hurt to try. Might take a year to get it down, but no loss to try for a year.

Well, since I started this thread we’ve been using our checklist for both kids and I think its getting a little traction! Now in the morning I say “checklist” and they both run upstairs and use it. NOrmalizes things for my son and so far seems to be working with less nagging. Let’s hope it works when school starts….

[quote=”KarenN”]One of the parenting philosophies we’ve grappled with in our house is whether we should pay for chores or not. In theory I think they should contribute to the home in an age appropriate way whether there is money involved or not. But that’ s a much less convincing argument than cold hard cash![/quote]

I tend to agree with you Karen. However we decided that this is also a way to teach him to be fiscally responsible. There are things that he wants that I won’t buy for him (again, video games tops the list) and things he wants that I WILL buy, but not the really expensive one that he wants. While I agree that he needs to contribute to the household without the *bribe*, this way I get him to do his chores, and teach him to save his money at the same time. Two birds kind of thing.

Totally with you. Yet another area of parenting where the theory is hard to put into practice.