Smells everything

[grannieg]

A 5 year old boy has a habit of smelling everything, or touching items then constantly smelling his
hands, with recent emphasis on not touching anything, but holding his hands away from himself
so that he doesn't touch anything.  What do you think about this?

[rebbecca]

sadly my husband smells everything too. maybe it is a male thing,lol

[Agiesmom]

I smell everything--my family always joked about it growing up.  My sister does it, too, but not as much as me.  Our kids also smell everything.

I have a very acute sense of smell and always smell things before others or the smell is more intense (like a skunk while driving--I always comment first that I smell one and it takes others in the car several seconds to a minute longer to smell it).

Also, because my sense of smell is so acute, I prefer bland foods (smell contributes greatly to taste).  I'm overly sensitive to strong flavors and spicy foods.  So, if your son also doesn't like onions or garlic or thinks things are spicy when you don't, he's probably not exaggerating.

Regarding not touching things, perhaps he had an odor on his hands that he didn't like that he could not get rid of.  Ask him about it.  Ask him to help choose hand soaps (so it's a scent he likes) --there is a lemon Softsoap called "Kitchen Fresh Hands" that it's made for neutralizing odors.  Sometimes the smell on my hands after cutting onions will actually wake me in the night, so I can understand that he may be reluctant to get his hands smelly.