How Often Should I Make My Kids Wash Their Hands?

When is it most important to wash your hands? My kindergarteners are getting frustrated by my insisting they wash their hands when they get inside from being outside/at school/stores, after using the bathroom, after wiping/blowing noses or coughing, before cooking, etc. Especially as we enter sick season again, this feels like dozens of times a day!

I want to keep us all healthy (them, our toddler, and my husband and me!), but I also need to have a good relationship with my kids, and right now it’s not working. Are there any corners to be cut here? When do I get the most bang for my hand-washing buck?

—Tired-of-making-them-wash-again Mom

The easiest way into this is to start with why washing hands would prevent illness. For a very large share of viruses, the way they get into your body is through your nose or mouth. In some cases (e.g. COVID), the viral particles are so small that they are airborne, which means just being around someone who is breathing them out puts you at risk. Hand washing doesn’t fix that risk.

For many viruses, however, they need to be actively transported to your nose and mouth … often by hands. It is here where hand washing helps. For example: if your kindergartener blows their nose and they’re harboring viruses (they are!), the viruses probably get on their hands. If they then touch your hands and you touch your face: bam, virus in the nose. If they use the toilet and wipe and they’re harboring norovirus (they might be!), then if they do not wash their hands, poop may stay on their hands, get on your hands, and get in your mouth. As I’ve written before, norovirus in particular is commonly spread through the fecal-oral route.

This is all to say: the most important hand-washing times are after obvious exposure to possible viruses. This includes blowing noses and coughing into hands, and after the bathroom. Before cooking is helpful largely because you’re about to expose a lot of people to whatever is on your hands.

Of the things you list, after coming in from the outside is probably the lowest on the list, since dirt per se doesn’t necessarily cause a problem. Still, I’m a big fan of hand washing! It’s one of the few really good evidence-based ways to avoid illness. I wonder if you might enlist the kids to make it more fun. Fun soap dispenser? Fun towel? Fun lotion? Some type of competitive approach? Worth a try.