buy the no water shampoo at walgreens and some sanitizer.

THATS neglect in my eyes. Have u tried telling the mom HELLO THE KIDS SMELL LK HOBOS!!! ss13 used to come with us too smelly lk a damn billy goat. we would get after him and just be on his case constantly. he eventually got the hint. when he was with us we got him into the habit of brushing his teeth twice a day taking showers daily and washing his hair correctly. i would def confront the mom bc if u guys are driving all the way over there to pick them up she should at least have them bathed clothed and spiffed up. You should take pictures too thats what we would do nails, how dirty their ears are, clothes all that. SS13 didnt even know how to wipe his behind when i first met my dh that was three years ago. he would hide all his dirty underwear in the closet and id find them and omg it was the most disgusting thing ever!!! At first i would throw them out not even washing them then realizing i was wasting money on underwear for him i had him shout it out and wash them himself. Dh even showed him how to wipe bc he apparently didnt know how.

Do :sick: they even realize that they smell?! Keep us updated.

This is so sad for the kids!! I agree that it can be shattering at their ages to make them change and wash up before getting in the car.

Would it be monetarily possible to take them to a store and buy a new outfit on occasions when you want them to visit their grandma? This way you could make it seem more like a "treat" than a punishment for being dirty, and they could wear their new outfit to grandma's house. Take a stop by the perfume department and have them try some sprays/cologne...umm...FEBREZE!? They are definitely at the age where most of them should be wearing deodorant. A fresh swipe of that might help, too.

Otherwise that situation is very difficult. Can you and DH have a sensitive, heart-to heart talk with the kids about how you could all be more clean? I know that could be awkward, but the 14 and 16 year old should want to be...high school would be rough as a smelly, dirty kid.

You cant make her give them baths. All you can do is what you are doing. BF has the same problem. BMs house has this horrible smell to it and the kids smell just like it. BF used to wash the clothes they came in but I put a stop to that for the same reasons you no longer wash your skids clothes.

They are old enough to take care of this themselves. Take a shower and do their own laundry.

I would have DH tell them that they will not get to go out to dinner if they are not showered with clean clothes on. If they want to that bad they will start taking care of themselves.

Some kids have to be forced to shower. My SD11 showers everyday at BMs (not sure if she gives her a hard time about it or not) but SD throws a fit when she has to shower at our house. She always has, since she was 4 yrs old!

I will ask her if she showered or not and then I have to double check with my DH to see if she is lying or not. It is frustrating.

skids rarely ride in my car, but i have towels covering the whole area each will be occupying. i also scotch guard everything and when they are out of my car, i go nuts with the disinfectant.... and they don't always stink, i just find them at the very least slightly smelly, germy and nasty.

for you, i would febreeze the shit out of the car before pick up, cover seat with beach towels and hope it covers their stinch! my sd's feet smell so bad you would puke! and ss, fuck i don't know -- maybe rolls in dog shit on occassion??

do you have to go for the pick up?? i wouldn't if the smell was so nasty.... and it does seem skids always show up with greasy hair ~~ i even asked last time "doesn't your mother let you wash your hair at home?" ~~ apparently she lets them, but doesn't make them - nor does she make the do homework or school projects.. the unappreciated sm gets to deal with all that bs, dh surely does not... did i lose track from where i was going somewhere?? damn vodka!

sorry for your stinky skids!

tell them that they cannot go out to dinner or visit gma if they are not showered BEFORE u get them. these kids are of able mind and body to take care of themselves. call cps as well, apparently bio mom isnt forcing them to shower, or maybe she wont let them. whatever it is, its gross and needs to be taken care of NOW.

i would also refuse to go on p/u with dh until those kids learn how to be presentable.

Stop at the nearest truck stop and have them shower in the driver lounge after you pick them up. Bring clean clothes with you.

Or more appropriately have BM drop them off in a very public place then loudly ridicule the crap out of her publically for how dirty she and the kids are. Maybe public humiliation will force her to pull her head out of her ass.

Or have CPS at the transfer spot for a sniff check then have them haul her abusive neglectfull off to jail for failing to maintain the kids at a healthy level of cleanliness.

I don't give a shit if BM is a dirty nasty bug infested skank but she should not force or
tolerate her kids being dirty.

Grrrr!

IMHO of course.

Best regards

The kids are too old to be coming filthy. You need to find out if they are being lazy or their mother won't let them shower. If it's lazy behavior you need to stop taking them places or doing anything with them until they can learn to clean up. I'm suprised they don't get teased by other kids there own age. Soap doesn't cost much so the BM can't claim being poor. Walgreens has sauve shampoo for $1 and you can pick up soap cheap

I'd buy a couple of bottles of cheap shampoo and a pack of soap and give them to BM and tell her "Obviously you don't have these items on hand for your children so I figured I'd help you out" say it with a smile.

I feel horribly for those kids,at their age,surely other kids make fun of them,I can't believe their mom hasn't realized that and done something.

These kids are old enough to know better!

You will have to take them home stinky and have them wash up before you go ANYwhere with them.

Or Pack clean clothes, deodorant and a plastic bag for each of them. Pick them up, pull into a gas station and have them change clothes in the restroom. And make sure those stinky clothes go back to BM.

My kids used to come home smelling of cigarette smoke and Body Odor from their dads. I would have them strip down once inside the house and get clean clothes on. You would think that with all the information about second hand smoke, their father and uncle wouldn't smoke in the house when the kids are there. But then, you just can't fix stupid.

If BM is a stink bomb,she probably doesn't care if they have decent clothes (and yes part of that child support she receives should be to buy them clothes).Maybe she doesn't buy soap,shampoo and all the stuff they should have access to.I would buy them some sport bags and put soap,shampoo,smelly good perfume,especially for the girl,hair bands stuff that girls love,clean underwear/socks...new toothbrush and toothpaste.The kids are only partly to blame,if mom doesn't buy it how can they use it?

So sad. We deal with this too. The boys are getting to the age where at least one of them WANTS to shower, so I'm hoping it will improve. The other one is still a poopy underwear hider at 12 yr old. Last night he told me he hadn't showered since we left him at BMs on Saturday.

I know this probably seems like the least of your problems, but do you document it? We document this in GREAT detail. We have dated entries that describe exactly what they are wearing, what crappy dirt they have on, holes in their shoes, dirty hair, minor burns, flea bites etc. We take pictures regularly too. We just do it in a friendly professional manner and never let them see any emotion about it.

It is so good to have that kind of information documented for court or visits from CPS. So in the meantime, I think you'll still be showering at the truck stop, scrubbing them down in a parking lot, or throwing them in the local pool! It's all you can do. Just keep a professional demeanor about it, and eventually maybe they will decide to save you the trouble and bathe themselves before pickup! Good luck!

I think there's a correlation between our culture's infatuation with kissing and our coinciding stigmatization of bad breath. I think there's more of a visceral basis behind our irrational fears of bad breath. A friend of mine had a pretty bad case of halitosis, and despite her being very attractive, guys would run away from her like she was a leper. After she had her problem taken care of and got a teeth whitening procedure done, she finally found a b/f nearly a month later. I think there's something hard wired in our psyche that hits the alarm button when we smell something perceived as unpleasant.

The kids are old enough to have good personal hygiene. Next time you pick them up-i would drive straight to walmart and allow them to pick out their own deodarant, shampoos, soap, etc and let them know that hygiene is a priority in your home. i would tie up the smelly clothes in a garbage bag and have a couple of nice outfits for them at your house. I have had to put ss's backpack and clothes in the garage before because it smelled so bad and when he was younger he would wear clothes that are mismatched, ripped, and 3 sizes too small for him. I usually brought a change of clothes if I knew we were going somewhere. He is 12 now and still has bad hygiene-it doesnt seem to matter what we've taught him and he has lived with us teh majority of his life. he can easily go a week without ever picking up a toothbrush. At his last dental appt he had a total of 10 cavities. he hasnt beenf or awhile so he probably has 10 more now. He is here eow now and for the most part never showers. He wets the bed nightly. He can be outside and sweat all day and it never occurs to him that he might want to take a shower. My absolute fave though was the time I got him a plastic sheet for his bed and he peed on it. The next morning he wadded it up and stuck it under his futon. The room started smelling so noxious after about a week that I started looking for the source. I reached under there and there was probably a pint of urine sitting in the middle of this plastic sheet. I gagged and then made dh come clean it. Of course he never said a word to ss about it. I will say that as bad as all this is (this last incident was just a couple of months ago)he is slowly starting to improve. he might occassionally take a shower-although this is usually in response to seeing my 11 year old take regular showers and he is starting to want to dress nicely-at least occassionally

A few thoughts....

1. Let your case worker/ lawyer know this is a problem... Sign of neglect.

2. I agree with the posters that said take them swimming or shower at nearby truck stop. What about simply staying in a hotel for the night as a your family time? Swim, shower, visit grandma?

3. As a teacher, years ago I had a smelly kid in class. Turned out she was AFRAID to shower because a male in the home would find a reason to come into the bathroom... (I don't think you need me to paint you a picture...) Could the skids be afraid due to some sort of inappropriate behaviors in the mother's home?

4. My SSs are 14 and 15. They shower 3-4 times a day, due to work, school and sports. They're cleaner than SS18!