We are many to believe children are completely adverse to hand washing. In this final post on the topic, I share some experiences that tell otherwise.

Education is the corner stone of a healthy and safe adult life.

Do you remember who taught you how to wash your hands or tie your laces? Let’s take a trip down memory lane, for a minute. You probably remember being shown more than twice this complex knotting exercise involving pulling, twisting, looping, and fastening both end of a cord before being able to do it on your own. It was not easy. It might have actually been very frustrating and painful. There was a reward though about doing it right: never having to stop again in the middle of the street, or a soccer/ basketball game, or between classes at school, to bend and lace your shoes again while you were sure everyone was staring at you. Now what about hand washing … Memory blank? That’s what I thought. I personally can’t recall being taught until I was ten or so when my grand-parents’ caretaker would not let us eat our lunch or our snack until our hands were clean, and I mean clean from nails to wrist. She would stand by the sink and direct us how to do a good job. And it was not until I started working in this field that I realized a) I was part of an overwhelming majority and b) there is little effort being put on promoting and implementing effective hand hygiene programs.

There is a strong belief that kids have a complete aversion to the sink and to hand washing, and because of it many think this is a lost cause. My experience with kids – although limited, but consistent with my research – in k to 5 as well as many conversations with health professionals such as Henry The Hand’s creator leads me to believe otherwise. Dr. William Sawyer – aka Dr. Will, a pediatrician whose work in the field has made him a recognized and respected voice in pandemic prevention – approach to teaching kids is based on fun and rewards and seems to be well adapted to kindergartners and first graders.

Past this age, my suggestion is to incorporate hand washing into a holistic approach to a healthy lifestyle. When we – as parents – start asking schools to provide healthy food to our kids, we think of their weight and potential addiction to junk food (trans fats and additives). Some schools now integrate the food component in the school’s curriculum through science project or lunch announcement (green vegetables: how they grow and what they provide for our body). The feedback I gathered from organizations building and implementing these programs as well as schoolteachers was “it works!” The conclusion can be reached with elementary schools that have implemented environmental awareness programs as part of their curriculum (water, pollution, recycling). Kids – again from my experience – seem to adhere whole fully to the concept of healthy life style. When I introduced kids to different hand hygiene related topics, they quickly adhered. In particular, they responded very well to activities describing the “life of germs” and to “playing detectives”. The botanical ingredients that make natural soaps gave us the opportunity to visit the world and food dishes. But most importantly – and a bit to my surprise – kids were very willing to take on this responsibility. I came back at least twice to the schools that were trying this hand hygiene program: teachers’ feedbacks were highly conclusive and favorable. And the kids you may ask? Was I going to be welcomed with grumpy faces? Not at all: smiley faces and (clean) hands waving at me.

How about us, busy parents and workaholic professionals?
Keep in mind that microbes causing illnesses do not always come from your kids’ schools. They are shared there, but they might have come from one of us in the first place. We have an important role to play in the process.
1- Keep your home germ free.
2- Wash your hands with your kids.
3- Use hand sanitizers when soap and water are not available.
4- If not available at your workplace, ask your health and safety department to develop and implement hand hygiene/ disease prevention programs.

Conclusion
Again, there is tremendous benefits in having kids properly wash their hands regularly and consistently, and it is worst spending time on the topic. If not taught at an early age, proper hand washing becomes much harder to adopt. The numerous surveys and studies show that teenagers and adults do not wash their hands as frequently and properly as they should. I’ll let Dr. Will conclude this series of posts on hand hygiene: “The majority of disease enters OUR bodies through the mucus membranes of our eyes, nose and mouth. For Respiratory and Gastro-intestinal diseases it is 100% of the portal of entry!! If You NEVER touch those mucus membranes with a dirty (contaminated) finger you will NOT be sick again from a respiratory or gastro-intestinal illness!! IMAGINE IT!!”

Special Thanks to Mark Tatulli for letting me use Lio.

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