How old was your child when they started showering or bathing themselves? I'm wondering if my kindergartener is ready but just wants us to do it for her. She does have long hair so it's a little harder to wash herself, but at some point she's got to learn, right?
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My older son is 8 and just started this year, because he didn’t want us to see him naked anymore. My younger son is almost 6 and still wants us to hang out in the bathroom with us while he has a bath and we wash his hair.
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My daughter is 7 and she’s been able to shower by herself for a while. We would just check to make sure she rinsed out all the shampoo/conditioner. Most of the time she still wants us to do it for her though. I wish she would do it herself more often!
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Ooh, I've been wondering what others do too. I have a kindergarten girl as well who currently still likes to take baths with her two younger sisters, but the tub is getting a little full! I also think she could do it herself but she likes the play time. A lot of the time, we encourage her to wash herself and we just wash her hair. I've also been hinting at her that it's probably about time to start taking showers, but I'm not forcing it yet. I think when she starts doing showers, I'd still wash her hair for a while. I've seen what it looks like when she tries, haha. And I remember when I was little my mom did that, I don't remember exactly what age.
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my 6 y/o has been doing it for over a year. I was against it... because she seems to waste a lot of water... and I am not sure she really understand how to wash her butt. I tried to peek but she makes a comment. My daughter has long hair and my husband showed her how to wash it ... with a facecloth. What can I say? She is not really clean but I love her anyway
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My kids (6 and 8) are fully capable of washing their bodies well, but they aren’t good enough with their hair, so one of us always goes on to do the conditioner and final rinse.
I have let my older daughter do her hair a few times, but she didn’t rinse properly and had a lot of residue that I noticed after the hair was dry, so I made her go back and I re-did it. So for now, I continue to do the final rinse on the hair.
Eta: my mother is constantly telling me they should be in charge of their own showers/hairstyling, but I have about 4 years of horrible hair photos of me in elementary school, that tells me my mother and I have different standards. I cannot stand to see dirty/greasy/uncombed hair on my kids. It’s just something I care about. And my mom didn’t, and it showed in all my childhood pictures. I’m not eager to repeat that so they can be independent a couple years early—my kids are so independent in so many areas, I’m willing to keep this one thing for them as long as I need to, until I can transfer the care of their hair to them and they can take care of it successfully.
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Both kids bathe on their own, my 5 year old still calls me in to wash his hair. My almost 10 year old just started washing his own hair within the last year.
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I've been wondering this same thing! I have a kindergartner and a 3yo preschooler. They both like to shower by themselves BUT I don't let them do it for legit reasons other than fun. I'm a nut about having the truly be clean so I don't think they can do it themselves properly. I will help them in the shower so I'm hoping my older girl will be able to do it by 1st grade. On the other hand, I plan to brush their teeth for them at night until they are 10! They brush themselves in the morning.
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My 7yo boy showers on his own and I'd say it's 50/50 when we send him back to the shower to do a better job rinsing the shampoo out of his hair...
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My 7 year old hates showers, so is still doing baths 80% of the time. She is fully capable of washing her body well and she generally does that on her own. But she has wavy/curly hair that she has not mastered washing, conditioning, and detangling yet.
I'm hoping we can get her to shower more soon because even though she complains about taking a both once she is in she wants to stay for 30-45+ minutes. But even when she showers more I think we will have to help with her hair for awhile.
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My almost 9 year old girl has been showering independently for about a year. Every week or two I pop in (with permission) to thoroughly scrub her scalp because she can't get it quite clean enough.
My six year old 1st grader can shower by himself but he requires me to be in the room. I think he just wants the attention.
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My 6 year old JUST started getting dressed by himself, we are a long way off!!
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My 5, 7, and 9 year olds have been showering alone basically since each of them was probably 5/6 for the oldest, 4 for the middle, and 3 for the youngest. (By "alone" I mean without an adult most days. My 5 year old is a wild animal and I would not trust her in the shower without one of her siblings). She literally went from being bathed in the sink (she's tiny) to showering with my husband or myself for maybe 6 months, to joining her sisters in the no-grownups shower.
I do try to shower with the 5 year old about twice a week to make sure her private parts get a good cleaning. Her sisters help her with her hair, and because the big girls have long hair, I try to help them once or twice a week to do a deep condition, but that doesn't always happen, so sometimes I resort to combing through it with leave in conditioner at bedtime.
It isn't perfect, but they aren't dirty, don't stink, and their hair looks generally presentable. If they couldn't shower themselves, I don't know how we'd function. Between the kids' supplemental academics (tutoring/Kumon), activities (dance that runs late 2x/week for one, riding that goes right up until dinner once a week for the other, and now that spring is around the corner, soccer & field hockey for everyone on another night)....we literally couldn't function. We'd be eating/going to bed at least an hour later if I had to shower all of them.
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I love questions like this. Reading through the replies is so insightful. My 6 year old DS is starting to take more showers and does a decent job of cleaning himself though I do inspect his hair to be sure it is thoroughly rinsed. He will still take baths occasionally because he likes to play in the water. I sit in the bathroom either way to supervise but will step out to do other chores so he gets a bit of alone time.
Our 3 year old wants to be like his big brother but I do give him a quick once over before he gets out to be sure he is really clean.
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@pachamama: that was my oldest! He hates doing anything by himself. Most days he still asks me to pick out his clothes and he is almost 10!
My 5 year old on the other hand... he is super independent and the complete opposite of big brother. He's been dressing himself since he was 4 and has to pick out his own clothes. Heaven forbid I pick out the wrong red shirt
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probably at age 7 for my oldest.
and my now 6 year old (also in K) CAN shower himself, but I still need to help him wash his hair usually... but I can send him off to the shower and he can get it started on his own.
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My six-year-old is responsible for washing her body (sometimes in the bath, sometimes in the shower with a parent, sometimes under the handheld shower by herself). I still wash her hair. In the last year or so, bathing has become a major battle, so while I suspect that she could accomplish the task independently, I don't see that actually happening any time soon. We don't do it that often, though, so it's not a hassle.
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I started teaching my daughter how to shower on her own around 6 and she was mostly independent by 6 1/2-7 but washing her hair was a challenge throughout the pandemic when it got super long and heavy so we helped her with her hair until we finally cut it around her 8th birthday last year. She's 8 1/2 now and showers by herself for the most part, but still worries sometimes about conditioner being rinsed out properly so I go in once she's done to check and help her dry her hair. That part is the only thing she hasn't really mastered yet (and we're still working on not doing science experiments with the various cleaning products in the bathtub).
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@Mrs. Carrot: OMG - THIS x 100000! The potions & the science! My 7 year old was wasting SO MUCH bath product. I have given her some empty containers (various pumps and "pretty" bottles from foaming hand soaps or my more expensive non-kiddie toiletries, haha) with just a drop of product left so that they still fizz/bubble....and that has curtailed some (but not all) of the excessive product use. Sometimes my girls come out of the shower with crispy hair, and I have to break out the dish soap to cleanse out whatever they've matted it down with!
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My boys started showering alone around 6 (actually, 5 for DS2 I think, but I checked for good rinsing awhile longer). But I imagine it might be a bit longer for DD, because long hair is tricky!
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She was 8 when she could shower without any assistance. Actually I still have to help her get the water temp right and switch it to shower from tub faucet.
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My 6.5 year old son likes the idea of independence in the shower but IMO doesn't do a great job. He still doesn't understand to lean back so that shampoo doesn't get into his eyes. I know he'll never learn without lots of practice doing it himself, but I'd say he bathes himself maybe 40% of the time and the other 60% we help (either standing by the shower to wash his hair, or sitting by him in the bath and helping or giving reminders).
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