Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:00:03]: When the kid does the thing you want them to do, and then you're like, oh, you finally took a shower. It's like, why why are you discouraging them? You don't think you're discouraging them, but you're doing this, like, judgmental kind of finally thing that makes you a jerk. And the kid's like, well, now I'm not gonna do it again. Mhmm.

Penny Williams [00:00:24]: Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author, and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey of raising your atypical kid. Let's get started. Hello, everyone. We're doing something a little bit different today on the show. We're sharing an episode from another podcast. It's called INIT, Raising Kids Who Learn Differently.

Penny Williams [00:01:01]: It's for parents of kids who have challenges with reading, math, focus, and other learning differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. You know full well how easy it can be to feel alone on this parenting journey, but you don't have to. In each episode of In It, you'll hear practical tips, helpful information from experts, and you'll feel confident about the decisions you make with your child. I listened to a few episodes of In It, raising kids who learn differently, and I find that every episode offers very practical strategies for our busy family lives as well as some relief that there are people who actually get our parenting struggles. This is an episode that's all about how to get your kids to care about hygiene, And you know I've been there in that struggle, and I'm sure some of you have too. So sit back, grab a warm drink, and enjoy this conversation on INIT.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:02:14]: Hello, and welcome to In It, a podcast for families with kids who learn and think differently.

Rachel Bozek [00:02:19]: Here, you'll find advice, camaraderie, stories of successes, and, yes, sometimes failures from experts and parents and caregivers like you.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:02:28]: I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at understood.org.

Rachel Bozek [00:02:33]: And I'm Rachel Bozek, a writer, editor, and mom who has definitely been in it.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:02:38]: Today, we're getting real. We sure are because it's time to talk about hygiene.

Rachel Bozek [00:02:44]: Dun dun dun. Oh, boy. Okay. Brushing teeth, showering, putting on deodorant, wearing clean clothes. What do you do when a young person in your midst is refusing to do one or all of these things?

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:02:57]: For lots of families, hygiene avoidance can become a major source of conflict.

Rachel Bozek [00:03:02]: And let's face it, pretty stinky.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:03:05]: Luckily, we've got someone with us today who's very skilled at tackling this kind of thing.

Rachel Bozek [00:03:11]: Brendan Mahan is an ADHD and executive function coach. He has his own podcast called ADHD Essentials.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:03:18]: He's raising 2 teenage boys, and he has ADHD, so he really gets it.

Rachel Bozek [00:03:23]: He's been a guest with us before, and we're so glad to have him back. Brendan, welcome to In It.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:03:28]: Yeah. I'm excited to be back.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:03:32]: We are so excited to talk to you. And today, as you know, we're talking about what we can do to get our kids to stay on top of their hygiene. But it occurs to me before we start solving that problem, maybe we need to take a step back and understand why lots of kids may have trouble with hygiene and may inadvertently end up, you know, going to school, being a little less than squeaky clean sometimes. So what is it that gets us here? Why do some kids seem to have trouble with cleanliness and self care?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:04:05]: Yeah. I think there's a lot of reasons. And that makes it tricky because we don't know which one it is, especially when we're just sort of talking on a podcast. Right? It's not as though you're a client that I'm consulting with. So moms and dads who are listening to this are gonna have to do a little bit of their own research and digging when it comes to their kids. They're gonna have to talk to their kids, ask them questions, pay attention to what might be happening depending on how easy this is even to talk about. Because some kids, this is not a comfortable topic. Some parents, this isn't a comfortable topic.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:04:35]: Mhmm.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:04:36]: So I just wanna I wanna honor that that element of this, that it can be more challenging than we might make it seem. In terms of reasons, one reason that jumps out that is not as obvious necessarily is just the sensory experience of it. Right? Like, the sensory experience of taking a shower or cleaning my body, right, clipping my toenails, getting a haircut, that stuff can be really challenging as a sensory experience for some kids. So that might be a part of it. And if that is a part of it, we wanna wonder and speculate, how can we make it gentler? One thing that I love, this is I'm gonna sort of go problem solution, if that's okay, because that way, I won't I'm less likely to forget. But one solution that I found specifically for showering, it works for sensory stuff, it's gonna work for a lot of the challenges that I bring up, is making a playlist for the shower. If we just let our kids listen to a playlist while they take a shower.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:05:36]: Mhmm.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:05:36]: It can make the sensory experience a little bit more gentle. This can also help support kids with timing issues. Right? The kid who will take a shower, but when they take the shower, it's forever. Yes. Yeah. Often, that's because they lose track of time. Right? They just because the sensory experience of the shower can make time get weird for neurodiverse folks. And if we have a soundtrack to our shower, we can know, alright.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:06:02]: When this song plays, that means I'm done. Like, I gotta wrap it up. Another thing that can happen is you might have a kid that will take a shower, but they never wash their hair or they never use any soap. They just stand in the shower with the water running. Well, if you identify certain songs on the playlist as this is the song, like, that is telling you to wash your hair. When this song comes on, that means you gotta scrub your hair up with soap or shampoo, and then when it's over, rinse your head off. So we can also use the playlist to sort of provide some cues at whatever level of obnoxious we need to be, right, if we need to play songs that are about hair.

Rachel Bozek [00:06:37]: I'm sitting here thinking about what songs would be great.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:06:42]: Yeah. Your kid might be able to listen to the songs they like. They might not be able to. Right? We might have to play Yeah. A song about hair so that they know and and it's more obvious. I don't know. Or it might be they get a song that they like in the beginning, and then the next song is one that they're not a big fan of so that they'll kinda come out of the music and pay attention to what they need to do. So the music stuff is it can be a pretty big deal.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:07:05]: I love that idea. That is yeah. That's really great. Okay. The sensory thing, I mean, it's huge, right, for lots of kids. What might be another reason why kids might have trouble with hygiene and self care?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:07:19]: It could be a control thing where you can't really make your kid take a shower, not real. So there might be a layer to this that is the kid needing control, the kid recognizing they get some power in this. That stuff often is about relationships. So it might be worthwhile to pay attention to how you're interacting with your kid around these personal hygiene things, brushing teeth, taking a shower. Are you doing it in a way where you're trying to rest control away from your child and force them to do whatever it is that you're asking them to do? Are you sort of taking control in places where if someone were to do it to you, it would offend you and really bother you? But because you've got a kid, you're not seeing that it's obnoxious. A good example of this would be when the kid does the thing you want them to do, and then you're like, oh, you finally took a shower, Oh, yeah. Like, why why are you discouraging them? Like, you're not you don't think you're discouraging them, but you're doing this, like, judgmental kind of finally thing that makes you a jerk. And the kid's like, well, now I'm not gonna do it again.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:08:30]: So, like, this power and control piece, it plays out in a lot of different ways. And the more we give our kids some agency and the more we give them dignity and let them kinda do their thing and give them credit for being the wonderful kid that they are, the less this stuff is in conflict and the more likely they are to do it.

Rachel Bozek [00:08:50]: Yeah. Now that makes a lot of sense. And what about when it's an executive function issue? Can you talk a little bit about when that's the kind of obstacle?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:09:00]: Yeah. Because that's certainly another component to this. Right? Is

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:09:03]: Mhmm.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:09:03]: Did they lose track of time in the shower and didn't wash anything? They just stood there getting wet Mhmm. Because they lost track of time, and now they have to get out. You're banging on the door saying, we gotta go. We gotta go. And now you're like, wait. You you still smell. Like, you're just

Rachel Bozek [00:09:19]: Or or did they come out with dry hair?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:09:22]: Right. Or dry hair.

Rachel Bozek [00:09:23]: Yeah. I mean, I've never seen that happen.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:09:26]: So some of it is like, that's inattention. Potentially, that's certainly time awareness. It's maybe distractibility. It depends. Right? Like but those are all things that get in the way. And moving on to another level of of sort of self care and hygiene, there's also cleaning a room. It happens to me. I'll be cleaning my office and I'll pick something up, and I'm like, oh, man.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:09:47]: I remember that conference. That was a great conference. And now I'm thinking about the conference and what I did there, and it was, like, 5 years ago, and it's not the least bit pertinent to what I'm supposed to be doing right now. But my memory got hijacked and I started drifting down this rabbit hole. The same thing happens to your kids. They pick up a toy, they pick up a picture, and now all of a sudden, they're wandering off somewhere in their mind. And it's not that they don't wanna clean the room, It's just that they got derailed, and there's no one there helping them to stay on track necessarily. Not that we need to be on top of them the whole time, but we do need to support them if it's a thing they struggle with.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:10:22]: One thing I did with my guys when they were they were little, this was when Ragnarok came out. That's how long ago this happened. I gave them a clipboard and I was like, alright. This is what we need to do. You need to clean your room so we can go to see Ragnarok. And on the clipboard, I stuck a piece of paper and I just made a t chart. And on one side, it said on task, and on the other side, it said off task. And I was like, all I want you to do is make a check mark, on task or off task.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:10:51]: That's it. Just put a check mark in the right column whenever you hear Alexa say, how are you doing? And I set a bunch of Alexa reminders. I think it was, like, every 5 or 10 minutes. I don't remember. I made it really clear to my kids. I was really kind to them. I was treating them with dignity. I was not this was not a gotcha.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:11:10]: Right? I was clear on that. I was like, this is not a gotcha. This is just for you to pay attention and see how you're doing. And then if it turns out you're off task a lot, we'll kinda figure out why. And then next time you clean your room, we'll be able to work around that. And if it if you're on task, then great. One of the things that that activity does is it forces you to stay on task because you get a little competitive. You get a little, like, alert to the fact that, like say you're off.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:11:35]: Yeah. So you wanna check the on task box. So just by doing it, I was keeping them on task. And they had one one time they were off task, and I was like, whatever. But they got their room clean, and that was all I wanted.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:11:46]: Do you think it was helpful because it was Alexa doing the the reminding versus you?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:11:53]: Yeah. I love Alexa as a reminding tool. I don't have to remember to do it, and it depersonalizes the prompt. It's not dad's a pain in the butt and constantly asking me to do whatever it is that he is asking me to do. It's Alexis doing it. And and my kids set their own reminders in Alexa, and have been doing that since they were, like, 7. Mhmm. They're 15 now.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:12:13]: And they're I'm assuming for folks who don't have an Alexa device, there's other little apps and things you could download on phones or whatnot to use as like a virtual reminder.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:12:23]: You can just set an alarm. Both of my kids have alarms they set on their phones for stuff, stuff that they don't want Alexa to say out loud at home when we've got friends over or something. Right. You know?

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:12:39]: So you brought up something really important that a lot of these hygiene issues could be about power struggles. Right? And, like, kids wanting to make their own choices and not be told when they're going to do things. It's their own dignity. They're gonna take care of themselves. So that could be true with a lot of kids. And if so, as a parent, how do you pick your battle? Right? Like if you list off all the things that kids are supposed to do, for example, before they leave the house, like brush their teeth, wash their hands, you know, make sure their clothes are clean and laundered, have deodorant on. How do you start to tackle this? If you don't wanna be the nag, you don't wanna have power struggles with them, but you would really like them to go to school with at least a few of these things done.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:13:19]: Mhmm. I would take over the things that I can take over if they need to be taken over. Right? So if I have to take over laundry for a little while, I'll take over laundry. And I can eventually pass that over to them again or for the first time, but it's not a big deal if you're doing their laundry in order to give them a little more space to take a shower, brush their teeth, that kind of stuff. Mhmm. I would also systematize as much of this as I possibly can. If I want my kids to brush their teeth, cool. Let's set a an Alexa reminder that reminds us to brush our teeth.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:13:51]: And I say us on purpose because if my kids never see me brush my teeth, they're not gonna brush their teeth. Right. So I need to brush my teeth in front of my kids, even if I go to bed later than they do. And it might be helpful to systematize it and use the excuse of, we only have 1 shower, 2 showers, I don't know how many showers you have in your house. But we have more people than showers, and we have to make sure that everybody gets to take a shower. Mhmm. So that means I need you guys or you child or whatever taking a shower in the morning or in the evening because we just need to divide and conquer. We might need to set it up that way, and that's totally fine.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:14:28]: It might also be useful to talk to your kids about the timing of it because that's here too. Right? Sometimes kids take showers at inconvenient times, and then we're like, we were supposed to be eating dinner, and why do you take a shower? Right? But that's discouraging them. Instead of being a grump about it, just go, alright, I'm really glad you took a shower. Can we try to figure out a way to do this that's not at 5:30 at night? Because the last couple of times you took a shower, it was at 5:30, that's dinner time, It kinda messes stuff up a little bit. When might make more sense? We might need to talk to our kids about that too. We might need to sit down as parents and reflect on, does our schedule give them enough time to take a shower? And if not, how do we create that space? And when is the best time for that space to be made? Maybe your kid doesn't wanna go to bed with wet hair. And so even though you're like, you could just take a shower at 9:30 right before you go to bed.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:15:24]: Right.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:15:24]: But your kid who has long hair, whether it's a son or a daughter is like, I don't wanna go to bed with a soaking wet head because then I wake up and my hair is a mess and all this kind of stuff. Maybe in middle school, they were great at it, and then high school started, and all of a sudden, they had to get up a half an hour earlier, and now they're not showering anymore. Often, this is just a problem to solve. But instead of looking at it as a problem to solve, we look at it as a moral failing, or, oh my god. No one's gonna like my kid because now they're smelly. What's wrong with my kid? And all this kind of stuff. It doesn't have to be that. It can just be there's some problem hiding inside of this that we don't know about, and we have to talk to our kid to find it.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:16:01]: Yeah. I I really like that advice. I feel like parents in general go, like, to your kid is 15, but now you're imagining them at 25. Right? You're, like, seeing

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:16:10]: them living in, like, this apartment that's, like, filled with garbage,

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:16:12]: and they're not taking showers when you have so many years before that's going to happen. Right?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:16:18]: Yeah. But our brains completely do that. We completely overreact and and are, like, oh my god. My kid, how are they ever gonna get married if they don't take a shower? Who will put up with their stench? How are they gonna have friends? Like, no wonder my kid doesn't have any friends. Like, they don't they smell bad. That's probably not what's going on, and they probably do have friends at school

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:16:38]: that they talk to. Because Who also smell. Right? Also smell. Right.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:16:42]: Yeah. Because, like, let's not forget, COVID happened and it impacted a lot of kids pretty significantly.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:16:49]: Mhmm.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:16:50]: And I can't ever stop saying that. Like, I bring it up all the time. Theoretically, we're years away from that, but we're not.

Penny Williams [00:16:57]: No.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:16:57]: Because these kids were a lot of the kids that parents are thinking about right now were at significant developmental stages when COVID hit. And it's we're still seeing echoes of that. And some of that might be, hey. You know what didn't matter so much during COVID for a lot of kids and families? Personal hygiene.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:17:16]: Mhmm.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:17:16]: A lot of families didn't care because they weren't leaving the house. If your family is one of those families that personal hygiene just went off the map and your kid was, like, in elementary school, middle school, well, now that they're in middle school or high school, guess what? There's echoes if your kid is struggling with personal hygiene. We might need to recalibrate and have an actual conversation about this instead of just saying, take a shower. We might need to say, hey. You know how we didn't really prioritize that stuff during COVID because we weren't seeing people? Well, now we're out and about, and it's really important that we put on deodorant, take a shower, brush our teeth because, like, smell matters again.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:17:52]: Mhmm.

Rachel Bozek [00:17:53]: So it seems like we've got kind of 2 different areas of concern when it comes to hygiene. Right? We've got the physical health, actual, like, taking care of yourself, and one that has more to do with social norms and which we've talked a lot about now. Do you find that it's more effective to lean into one of those angles than the other? Like what for you has been the best argument you can make that will get a kid to want to take care of their body?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:18:20]: It depends on the kid. And some of it is talking to the kid about how they feel. Right? Like, hey. You went for 3 days without taking a shower. Like, you haven't taken a shower in 3 days, oh, kid, that I'm coaching in my imagination right now. Mhmm. I do this with young adults too, and sometimes adults. I'm just like, how do you how do you feel? And usually, they're like, I don't know, kinda tired, kinda gross, kinda not so great.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:18:47]: I'm like, alright. Cool. Here's what I want you to do. At some point today or tomorrow morning, take a shower. And then if it's an adult, I'm like, I want you to text me about how you feel after you take that shower. And if it's a kid, I'm like, just talk to mom and dad, have them write it down, something like sometimes the kid writes it down on their own. How do you feel? Right? I've had kids brush their teeth and young adults too. I'm like, go brush your teeth and come back.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:19:12]: And they're like, I can't just do that. I can't just that's a waste of time. Because they're, like, on the clock with me sort of. And I'm like, but it's it's not that big of a deal. Like, it's not gonna take so long. Yeah. Because some of this too is with ADHD, especially, and and other executive functioning areas that are challenged. That time component, that time awareness plays a prominent role.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:19:33]: And often, we conflate emotion with time if we have executive functioning challenges. Mhmm. If we have a lot of anxiety about something, it can feel like it's gonna take longer than it actually takes. And that happens with toothbrushing. If I've got a kid that doesn't brush their teeth enough and they know it and they feel bad about it, but they also don't really wanna do it because for some reason it doesn't appeal to them, then I have them brush their teeth and they're like, oh, that was fast.

Rachel Bozek [00:19:57]: Yeah. And and even if

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:19:58]: it only takes 30 seconds, that's 30 seconds more than you've been doing.

Rachel Bozek [00:20:01]: Right. Right. Right. That's true.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:20:10]: Well, I wanna talk a little bit about mostly, probably this is with older kids, but we know that families often worry about their kids' hygiene and they're not taking care of their bodies because they worry about sending them to school and having kids say things, right, about how they might smell or how they might look. And so should we be telling our kids, like, you know, you haven't showered in 3 days, and I can tell you haven't used deodorant. You know, you might want to, or should we not talk about this at all and just let it play out? Like, what is your advice when it comes to kind of, like, the social pressures of this?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:20:47]: I think you have to know how to talk about it. It's not useful to not talk about problems.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:20:53]: Mhmm.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:20:53]: Problems don't get solved if we don't talk about them. But problems also can become conflict if we don't talk about it in a way Mhmm. That is kind and that is caring. So you could go over to your kid and give him a hug. Right? And go, hey, kid. I I love you, but you're getting a little ripe. Just heads up, man. You know? Like, you can do it that way depending on your kid and what their sort of temperament is.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:21:19]: Maybe joking about it will work, maybe it won't. And it's a it's an act of love to tell them so that they can address it and they're not embarrassed out in the world. Better for them to be mildly embarrassed at home than for them to maybe be bigger embarrassed out in the world, or for them to not be embarrassed, but also not be engaged with socially.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:21:41]: Right.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:21:41]: And if you can have that conversation in an honest way, in a gentle way, in a safe way, then you're good. And and this goes back to the whole idea of, like, don't discourage the stuff you want. Right? Don't be a jerk about it. Just be kind. So much of this is just being kind to our kids. Right.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:22:01]: And I think even, like, sometimes just like modeling it. Right? Like, I've come home from a run and I've been like, oh, like, I certainly like, I'm sweaty today. I'm definitely gonna take a shower.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:22:14]: And maybe if you have a partner, maybe you can set it up so it's not as embarrassing for you as a person. It's not as intense for you as a person. But maybe you have a conversation with your partner and you're like, hey. I'm gonna go out for a run, and I need you to call me out on being smelly when I get back. Right. And then I'll go take a shower. Because that also normalizes being called out. Right.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:22:36]: Right?

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:22:36]: Yeah. I don't I don't unfortunately, I'm thinking about that scenario. I'm like, yeah. I actually don't have to have my husband call that out because my teenage daughter will without me asking her to.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:22:47]: Well, and you also get the opportunity to model how you receive that information.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:22:52]: That's right.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:22:52]: When you receive it. Right? You can say, oh, yeah. No. Cool. Thanks for letting me know. I'll go through your shower. And receive it in a way that's sort of balanced and not overwhelmed and not having an emotional storm. Just like, oh, okay.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:23:04]: Cool. Thanks.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:23:05]: Yeah. Exactly. You know, a lot of times we think, oh, a checklist will help our kids. Right? Like, these are the things you need to do before school, like brush your teeth, brush your hair, blah blah blah. And sometimes we associate checklists with, like, maybe some kind of reward system. Does that work or no?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:23:25]: Don't don't please please don't.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:23:27]: Please. That's why I wanted to ask this.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:23:29]: Please don't do that. That is control. That's I'm trying to control my kid. Yep. A checklist, if they want it and are finding it useful and supportive, then it's supportive. But a checklist that is a demand is control. And, ladies and gentlemen in the audience, if your kid smells, they are of the age where they want you to have less control, not more control. They're starting to pull away.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:24:00]: It's normal, it's developmentally appropriate, it's supposed to happen. If you double down on control when they are developmentally moving to have more of their own control and be less controlled by mom and dad, it is not a recipe of for success. It just isn't. So you can advise, you can provide some strategies and skills, but a checklist where they can, like, earn money or something is not gonna work.

Rachel Bozek [00:24:28]: I was just about to say that, like, if it is, quote, successful, all of a sudden, you need, like, a shower budget.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:24:35]: Right.

Rachel Bozek [00:24:35]: To get this to happen.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:24:37]: And the other side of that too, right, is if I have a checklist and I get a reward for accomplishing the things on it, and teachers be listening to this, then if I don't get those things, I failed. Mhmm. I I met with a school that we were talking about how the kid would come home every day and talk about how he was a failure and he couldn't succeed at anything. And the school had these checklists, and they were like, we never tell him he's a failure. We never say that. I was like, your checklists say that to him every day. Yeah. That's what all the research says.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:25:10]: And it's the same thing for moms and dads and stuff at home. Like, if it's useful, great. If it's not, don't do it.

Rachel Bozek [00:25:17]: So is there such a thing as a hygiene late bloomer? And and if so, what would make the awareness or compliance finally kick in?

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:25:28]: Yeah. There's totally hygiene late bloomers. Like, the peer pressure is one thing that is gonna make that kick in. And most significantly, I am suddenly interested in boys or girls. Like, once that romantic part of the world brain kicks in, once I start wanting to impress people, all of a sudden, then the personal hygiene stuff kind of cascades from there where, well, if I wanna look good, I should probably brush my teeth.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:25:55]: So there's still hope. If our kids have not bloomed in that direction, you're saying there's still hope. Yeah.

Rachel Bozek [00:26:02]: Brendan, this has all been really helpful and made me think about some things in ways that I had not thought of them before. So thank you.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:26:09]: Yes. Thank you so much.

Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., MS [00:26:11]: Yeah. Thank you.

Rachel Bozek [00:26:12]: Now I gotta go make my shower playlist. Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any thoughts about the episode, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at [email protected].

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:26:32]: And check out the show notes for this episode, where we have more resources and links to anything we mentioned.

Rachel Bozek [00:26:38]: This show is brought to you by understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. Learn more at understood.org.

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:26:51]: In It is produced and edited by Julie Suebren with additional production support from Cody Nelson and Alana Milner. Justin d Wright makes the show, and Mike Ereco wrote our theme music. Brianna Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director.

Rachel Bozek [00:27:06]: From understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Kocher, and Seth Melnick. Thanks for listening,

Gretchen Vierstra, MA [00:27:13]: And thanks for always being in it with us.

Penny Williams [00:27:30]: Oh my goodness. So much great wisdom there. That was an episode of In It, raising kids who learn differently. To listen to more episodes, search for INIT, Raising Kids Who Learn Differently in your favorite podcast app. That's INIT, Raising Kids Who Learn Differently. I will see you on the next episode. Take good care. Thanks for joining me on the Beautifully Complex podcast.

Penny Williams [00:27:59]: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share, and don't forget to check out my online courses and parent coaching at parentingADHDandautism.com and at thebehaviorrevolution.com.