My son always argues about taking a shower

Help I have to argue with my 14 year old all the time aobut taking a shower. He has a summer job and gets extremely hot and sweaty (dirty also) and I still have to get on him about taking  shower. I was out of town for two days and just found out he hasn't showered since before the last time he worked (three days ago). As he walked in to the bathroom slaming the door hesays tome sorry I won't ever be good enough for you. AHGGG. I get tired of feeling like i am a mean old dried up something or other. Just venting

Make him smell his clothes after he's worn them all day at work.

Perhaps a more brute force approach?

You have a hose?

Next time he comes home, hose him down. If he screams, explain to him that you have a right to live without the house being all stunk up, so either he can take a shower or you can hose him down.

Stick to your guns. It's either one or the other.

If you have a husband, it might be good to get him in on this first, btw :)

my brother does the same thing! he's 12 but he doesn't work, just school but he's pretty active. my mum just shouts at him and after a while he gets sick of it and charges upstairs lol (after a lot of arguing).

My older brother had the same problem, but I think he was younger than 14. Is he into girls yet? Tell his girl friends that he doesn't take a shower regularly he may hate you for it at the moment but I guarantee he'll start showering!

Hahaha, I like Nani's approach, go for the jugular.

That comes with age, my son does the samething. He doesn't want to take the time like he is going to miss something while getting the stink off his body. WE don't miss it after he takes his shower it is always a battle. He has to take one in the morning after he gets all his morning stuff done. Making bed and such. Then after a full day of being out in the hot sun, he has to have another one, he just has a cow "I took one already" yea, but you stink...he is clueless...it will change my daughter was the same way when she was about 10 it took awhile for her to get over it, now I cannot get her out of the bathroom...go figure...

Take comfort in the fact he's not doing what other teenage boys are doing in the shower? (Hehehe)

*runs away*

lol @ heather

Thanks Heather for that visual...I did find a bar of soap with a hole in it...not going to ask, nope not me!! Just going to let it go...

*imagines bar of soap with a hole*
*never thought of that*
*would have been too embarassed in case family found it*

It's very normal, I have the same problem with my son. Sometimes he even CRIES!!

Can somebody please explain to me why teenage boys are so shower-resistant? Do they like being smelly? Is that the appeal?

The not showering thing is a normal part of rasing boys.  There is somewhere between age 10-14 that they will just refuse to take showers.  My oldest is in that phase now.  What really gets me is when it is laundry day and there is only one pair of dirty underwear in the laundry for the whole week.  It is frustrating because they are not little kids anymore and you don't feel like you should have to tell them to shower, or change their underwear, but you still do anyway.  Just wait a few years when he discovers girls and he will be in the shower every day twice or three times.  I grew up in a house with 4 of us teenage boys, and it seemed like there was never enough hot water.  I don't know how my parents paid the food bill either.

He'll grow out of it, when he wants a girlfriend and they won't go near him because he stinks

I remember hating it when my mom made me shower, I could have been outside playing with my friends.

I got over it eventually, and it became like habit.  It's a good thing too because I got extra oily skin when puberty hit.

I remember one day I was standing in line to get into my class room (I think it was 5th grade) and the girl in front of me REEKED like BO so bad.  From then on I made sure I brought my deodorant in my back pack, incase I forgot to put it on that morning.  And boy did I make sure I showered every morning I had school.

I finally understood what my mom meant when she said "you don't want your odor to OFFEND anyone".  I was confused by this as I thought offend meant I had to use verbal insults.

That reminds me, I should thank my mom for putting up with me.

bethevan, my son is 13. He went to sleepaway camp for the first time last summer, when he was 12, and in the months before he left, I decided he needed to learn to shower every day he was at my house. (My ex and I share custody.) I didn't care whether he liked it or not -- he had to shower.

Yes, I got an argument every night about it. As soon as dinner was over, he had to shower; after that, he could have dessert and spend time on the computer. If he argued long and hard, it cut into his dessert/computer time. He learned that the hard way.

It took a few months; he protested vigorously at first, but gradually, it took less and less time.

After he came back from camp, no more battles. His first roommate at camp didn't shower, and my kid learned just how stinky someone can be when he doesn't shower! He's even commented in one of his online forums that there is a non-showering kid at every camp -- there's always one, and it isn't him!

I still have to remind him to take a shower sometimes, but now, he does it (mostly) willingly.

stinky, if your kid has simply been inside since his last shower and hasn't been sweating, why make him shower in the morning? It's a rare kid who really needs two showers a day.

Its totally a boy thing (sorry guys). My brother went thru it, my son still goes thru it kind of (hes 12). During the week he will shower before school and change his boxers even, now that hes more interested in girls. But Im constantly reminding him to brush his damn teeth and on the weekends, forget it...the typical conversation goes like this: me "umm, Jacob, whens the last time you showered, brushed your teeth or changed your boxers?"...him, pausing to think about it "whats today?"..me "sunday"...him "friday"...me "jacob thats gross, go defunk yourself please"...him "ok". LOL

He will grow out of it, dont worry.

My guy cousins all did this and my aunt just let him be stinky.  Eventually, the kids they hung with teasted him and so....they started showering and using deodorant.  Peer power can do what parental pressure cannot.

For some odd reason, it seems to be a phase than many teen/pre-teen young men go through.

Thanks everyone for making me laugh I guess my kid is normal. I also have issues with the underwear too. I guess that goes hand in hand with the shower. The worst thing is I had him take his sheets off the bed so I could wash them before I left to go out of town. I asked him this morning if he had put them on and he said no because I told him to make sure he took a shower since he had clean sheets. Well since he hadn't taken a shower he didn't want to put on the clean sheets. AHGGGGGGGG

I'm not sure who's luckier. My brother showers a lot, and for a long time. It drives me nuts! Then he goes outside, and comes back in to take another shower. I can't smell so his stench wouldn't bother me. That's probably the only reason that I find it annoying that he showers constantly.