Washable Moments-H1N1 Flu HandWashing Kids Games
Hand Washing Games to Help Young Children Prevent H1N1, Flu, Colds
Sep 22, 2009
It's hard enough for adults to remember to wash their hands for twenty seconds about a dozen or more times a day. So, asking young children to do so during flu season, and especially given concerns about H1N1, is asking a lot.
With a little creativity, of course, families will make up their own memorable games and tunes to accompany the new mandates of handwashing, and transform what could be a scary moment into something fun and memorable. For instance, make a H1N1 Halloween costume.
Meanwhile, here are a few ideas to transform the recommended 20-second hand wash from a frustrating moment into educational family fun—and hopefully the beginnings of a lifetime of good hand hygiene. It’s an opportunity to try to educate young children about hygiene without scaring them.
Bigger Goal: Paying Attention to Hygiene
Healthy hand hygiene isn’t something that a child learns on his or her own, unless they’re born with a rare gene for fastidiousness. But hygiene-games for young children can help reduce their risk of contracting a cold or communicable illness, and also to educate them longer term about the health benefits of hand washing.
“Educational activities implemented resulted in increased knowledge of the importance of proper hand washing and in positive changes in the children's hand washing habits", according to “Using Educational Interventions to Improve the Hand washing Habits of Preschool Children", by Susan Witt and Holly Spencer, Early Child Development and Care Journal, published in January, 2004.
The key is to use games to encourage children to focus on what they'e doing, in the moment, so that hand washing isn’t just part of a transition from one thing to another—say, play to meal, or bathroom to play—but becomes something that they enjoy and pay attention to of its own accord.
The following games are juvenile, but the idea is very grown up: to engage in healthy behavior and ward off colds and the flu.
But First, Parents Have to Wash Hands Too!
Of course, children mimic their parents. So all the games in the world won't teach a child good hand hygiene (or help them prevent getting H1N1, colds or the seasonal flu) if the adults in their life give short shrift to washing their own hands. Adults need better hand hygiene, too. For those who get impatient at the whole idea, or who tend to short-cut their own hand hygiene routines, there are adult games, such as brain teasers, exercises and other things for multitasking adults to do while hand washing.
Sing ABCs or Happy Birthday
The CDC recommends that children sing the ABC song or Happy Birthday, twice through, presumably once for each hand.
Hand Washing Song: Variations on Row Row Row Your Boat
Here’s one set of hand washing lyrics to the tune of Row Row Row Your Boat. It's fun to make up one’s own tune, too.
Wash wash wash
Those germs
Gently down the drain
Merrily merrily merrily
They won’t be seen again.
Hand Washing Game: Button in the Fist
The “button button who’s got the button” game dates at least back to the late 19th-century. It can be adapted for hand washing, as follows.
Find a colorful button, too big to go down the sink, and small enough to be fully covered by the child’s fist. To begin, the adult washes his or her hands and the button first.
- The child grabs the button in one fist, while the adult covers his or her eyes.
- The game is for the adult to help the child wash first one fist and then the other, while guessing which fist the button is in. This gives the adult an opportunity to wash both the back of the hand and the front, leaving the palm and fingernails.
- When the back of both hands are clean, the game shifts to prying open the child’s fists to see where the button is, and then washing the insides of the palm and the fingernails.
- Then reverse the game, and have the child pry a button, with soapy hands, out of the adult’s fist, while washing the child's palm and fingernails.
Hand Washing Game: Variation on This Little Piggy Went to Market
Adults can make play out of washing work. The following gives adults an opportunity to help a child wash each finger separately, which can be useful as a way to focus attention on the different parts of the hand.
Adapt the lyrics to contemporary lifestyle; if the family eats cheese sticks and not roast beef, then it might go:
This little finger went to market
And this little finger stayed home
This little finger ate cheese sticks
And this little finger had none
And this little finger went wee wee wee all the way home.
Given the likelihood that in this globalized world where scientists have expressed concern about an H1N1 flu pandemic , avian flu, other viruses,, not to mention the common cold, why not do one’s child a favor: make hand washing fun today, and instill a healthy habit for a lifetime.
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