Dress defiance

I have a fairly determined three-year-old daughter, especially in the matter of dressing! If I manage to dress her, she won’t keep the clothes on and runs around in her singlet. And she refuses to wear jackets or jumpers, even if it is 5 degrees and raining outside! Is she destined to be the managing director of a major clothing label and until then, how can I avoid the daily clothing war?

It’s funny, if your sense of humour extends that far, to notice how some kids really get a set on things – certain socks, shoes, pants, dresses, foods, drinks, rituals and so on.

Some see it as a power thing, but beneath any power play there’s usually insecurity. If you can get those fussy kids involved in choosing which outfit, you’re lucky because they can just as easily change their mind the next minute. Some confident parents just say, ‘Well this is the way it is’, and carry on regardless.

But how much they eat and what they want to wear are two of the few areas where littlies can exercise a bit of control over their parents. It’s a power thing and needs to be kept in perspective.

But here are some ideas to help avoid a confrontation:

• Give your daughter a (limited) choice about what she wears by asking whether she wants the blue outfit or the pink today. Being involved in the decision-making will allow her to feel she has some control of her own; and if she has ‘chosen’ her clothes, she just might keep them on!
• Keep in mind that kids don’t feel the cold the way adults do so try to let consequences rule rather than confrontation. If they take layers off it’s often because their skin is sensitive and they feel prickly. They won’t catch pneumonia and die and the more they run around the warmer they get. Some kids (like some adults) are just hotter than others and need fewer layers.
• If they’re just the fussy type and must wear only the same favourite outfit, then another good way to tackle this is to declare the day a ‘stay the same day’ and flood out rather than beg out the behaviour. This means, for instance, that they must wear the same gear to bed, out everywhere, and you can extend it to eating the same food for breakfast, lunch and dinner and reading the same book at bedtime. It sounds corny but it keeps it playful, saves confrontation and (eventually) gets them weary of the same boring things. When they want a change then make it apply to clothes as well.
• Some parents con the kids with imagination – special little sparklies on outdoor gear to make the extra layers more attractive, convincing them that all princesses wear this layer, convincing boys that this jacket makes them look really powerful like favourite TV characters, getting older siblings to tell them what the warm layer did for them...
• Other parents will use non co-operation on dress sense as a signal that it’s going to be a non co-operation game day – so when the kids want mum’s co-operation on things they want to watch or do or make, then parents remind the kids that it’s a non co-operation day so unfortunately, although they’d like to help out, they can’t until the game’s over.

As to whether they grow up to be managing directors of clothing companies, alp dwellers or ski instructors, who can tell? However the chances are they will grow up and become parents and have the same behaviours visited upon them in their turn.

That’s as close as parenting gets to justice!

By Dr John Irvine

Dr John Irvine is an educational psychologist, a consultant psychologist, a counsellor and a widely recognised specialist on children’s behaviour. He is the author of significant books for parents such as A Handbook for Happy Families and Who’d Be a Parent? His relaxed and warm advice deals with the practicalities of managing real families in everyday life.
 

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, February 2004. Updated July 2009.