As parents, we know it’s inevitable; we send our kids to school, and eventually they’re going to come home sick. It seems that school is a breeding ground for germs. Kids cough and sneeze. Then they share toys and touch everything on the playground.

What’s even worse is that when those germs come home, everyone in the family might end up getting sick. That’s a big thumbs down for cold and flu season.

While you might think that packing hand sanitizer in your child’s backpack is a good way to prevent those icky germs from coming home, that’s not necessarily the case. Hand sanitizer needs to be used correctly in order to be effective at all, and even when it is used correctly, it doesn’t kill everything.

Watch the video below to learn the correct way to use hand sanitizer and to learn the most effective way to keep your kids (and yourself) germ free.

While 20 seconds can seem like a long time to wash your hands, according to The World Health Organization (WHO), it’s actually best to wash your hands for 40-60 seconds. It might seem like it’d be impossible to get your littles to actually spend that long washing their hands, but it’s not that hard to do when you apply this easy trick. Tell them to sing the song “Happy Birthday” two times. When they’re done, about 40-60 seconds will have passed, and they can proceed to dry their hands.

Obviously, you don’t have to sing “Happy Birthday” out loud if you don’t want to. You can sing it silently in your head. Kids love birthday parties, so perhaps they won’t mind singing this festive song. Maybe it will make every time they wash their hands feel like it’s a party.

Are you guilty of sending your kids to school when it’s been less than 24 hours since they were vomiting or had a fever? It can be hard to arrange for childcare for an extra day at home, but it really is important to give your child that extra time to rest and recover and to prevent your child from spreading germs to other kids at school.

We’re still going to keep hand sanitizer in the car and in our purse for times when we can’t get to soap and water; however, whenever possible, we’re going to head to the bathroom and sing “Happy Birthday,” and we’re going to teach our kids to do the same.