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How to educate the skills of personal hygiene and neatness in a child in 1-1,5 years?
Last reviewed: 08.07.2025

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If you want your child to grow up to be a neat, cultured person, you must teach him this. Naturally, you yourself must serve as an example to him. You cannot demand that a child keep his hands clean if they are dirty and there is "mourning" under your nails. You cannot demand that a child be neat in his clothes if you walk around the room in a dirty, torn robe and have holey socks or torn slippers on your feet. Keep in mind that a child, while he is small, and even at an older age, tries to imitate adults and "absorbs" their behavior like a sponge. Moreover, negative examples "sink" into his soul much faster than positive ones.
In order to successfully instill the skill of neatness, it is very important that the teacher, in the process of communicating with the child, expresses a positive attitude towards everything clean and tidy. For example, a child picked up a doll. And the mother at this time should say: "Look at how clean the doll is! What a clean, ironed dress she has! What clean hands the doll has!" Or, on the contrary, express criticism if the doll's dress and hands are dirty. This is necessary so that the child understands that untidiness and untidiness are bad. Naturally, one approving or disapproving attitude is not enough. After all, if the doll's dress and hands are clean (and yours too), but the apartment is a mess, things are lying around everywhere, there are crumbs on the table, and unwashed dishes have been lying in the sink for a week, the child simply will not believe you. So, at the age of one to one and a half years, it is necessary to begin to instill cultural and hygienic skills in the child:
- wash your hands before eating;
- eat only from your own plate;
- sit down in your high chair yourself and push it back into place after eating (unless, of course, it is very heavy);
- Before eating, it is essential to put a bib or a headdress on the child so that he understands that a “chewed” shirt is bad;
- After using the toilet (or if the child has not yet used it, but is simply sitting on the potty), be sure to wash your hands;
- the child should know that he should sit on the potty quietly, without doing anything else;
- the child needs to be taught to wash and brush his teeth in the morning and evening;
- the child must clearly understand that he cannot leave the table with a piece of pie, bread, apple, etc. He cannot leave the table with his mouth full;
- It is advisable to teach the child to thank his mother, grandmother or any other adult after eating.
With the right method of potty training, children start asking to go to the potty by the age of one and a half. You are already partly familiar with the method of potty training. But this topic is important, so it is worth repeating.
In the evening, before going to bed, you put your child on the potty. If he hasn't done anything, then after about 2 hours you should try again, even if the child is already asleep. The main thing is not to make noise or turn on a bright light, so that the child doesn't get scared and start being capricious. (A capricious child may not go to the potty at all - out of stubbornness and irritation that he was woken up). In the middle of the night, 3-4 hours after the previous urination, try to put the child on the potty again. In this case, your actions should be accompanied by quiet, gentle words urging the child to pee. During the day, if the child does not always ask to go on his own, you should also observe the time interval between urinations. Usually, parents know (approximately) how often their child urinates. Based on this, if the child is playing too much and does not show the usual anxiety before urinating, you should interrupt his play and offer him to go to the potty. By the way, you also need to interrupt the game in such a way that the child does not become capricious. If, for example, he plays with dolls, teddy bears (or even cars), you need to smoothly intervene in the game and say: "Oh, look, the teddy bear wants to pee. Let's put him on the potty." And then suggest that the child also go to the potty. In this case, it is advisable to put the teddy bear on a toy potty, otherwise the child, who has long needed to pee, will not wait for the teddy bear to "go" to his potty and will wet himself. These or similar teaching methods should be used constantly, every day. Then the child will gradually begin to ask to go to the potty himself. You cannot be angry with the child and punish him for the fact that, having played, he missed the right moment. However, you need to express your displeasure that he wet his pants. For example, you can say: "Ew! Our boy (girl) wet his pants! He did not ask to go to the toilet (potty) and now he will be wet!" But, expressing reprimand to the child, do not forget that half of the blame lies with you. After all, it is you who must teach him to ask to go to the potty. It is you who must see that it is time for the child to go to the toilet!
Teaching neatness also includes the process of dressing and undressing. The child should know that the things he has taken off must be carefully folded in a specially designated place (hanged on a chair or put in a cabinet). Naturally, his hands are not yet able to perform such fine movements as folding things, but you should help him with this. The main thing is that he does not scatter them around the room.
Teaching neatness also means maintaining order in the children's corner. If a child scatters his toys while playing and then gets up and leaves, he must be brought back and made to clean up the toys. If this is not done, the child will never learn to clean up not only his corner, but also his own home. If the child does not want to follow your instructions and starts to be capricious, you can try to turn cleaning into a game. For example, say: "Oh, look! The cars (dolls, teddy bears, cubes, etc.) want to go into the garage, and it's time for the soldiers to go to bed and they want to get into their box."