You can spot them right away ... the proud kid in the mismatched outfit with the embarrassed looking parent ... you just know there goes a kid who has dressed himself! When young children select clothing, many moms are uncomfortable with the results. Children allowed to choose at random generally pick what they like best with little regard to adult concerns such as appropriateness for the weather, coordination of colors and patterns, etc. Some moms deal with this individualized dressing by casually interjecting into the conversation, “Oh, how proud I am that Sarah has dressed all by herself this morning!” As if any adult in their right mind thought that the cowboy boots with the pastel Easter dress and the sequined hair bow were parental choice!
Having kids look the way parents like and teaching kids to make wise or appropriate clothing choices is often difficult with toddlers but nearly impossible with teens! Strangely enough, that is just the way it ought to be. Learning to choose one’s clothing is an important part of growing into a capable youngster just as learning to purchase one’s clothing is an important part of becoming an adult. Making choices and learning to live with the consequences of those choices is what growing up is all about. However, clothing ... the choosing and wearing of same ... can be an area in which many children, teens, and parents disagree.
Young children have a need to become independent, to “do it myself!” You hear “No, me” from toddlers over and over as they struggle to let the adults in their world know they need and want no help. The trouble is, parents know toddlers do need AND want help, but providing that help and keeping peace is difficult. The secret is to give toddlers choices but not from unlimited items. Select two shirts and ask your child to pick the one he wants to wear; allow him to select sandals OR tennis shoes, red OR green socks, plaid OR striped shorts. Children feel competent as they make good choices and become self-confident as those choices are respected. Allowing toddlers to make selections will reduce or eliminate battles as well as teach children useful social and thinking skills.
Teens also say “NO, me” as they struggle to balance independence and choice making with parental concerns and restrictions. Teens select clothing for many reasons: to be like peers, to imitate super stars, to be unlike adults, and to explore images of persons or adults they wish to become. Clothing and hairstyle make the most visible statement about us and are always the first impression others have of us. Teens “try on” many rl.es as they move through adolescence and their clothing often reflects these efforts to understand the world in terms of who they are becoming. Teens need and are often driven to be “different”. Whatever else “different” may mean, it can be defined as unlike parents and/or other adults. In a world where SO-year-old grannies look like 40-year-olds and the 40-year-olds dress like 25 and 25 dresses and acts like 15, fifteen-year-olds will find more and more outrageous, “different” clothing to wear to express a sense of personal identity and to be unlike the “older” generations.
Remember the “generation gap”, that space between generations that allowed teens to be teens and adults to be adults? The generation gap clearly separates things-toddler and teen from things-adult. That gap, created by mature and understanding adults, protected childhood and children, and we still need it. Too much too soon for kids seems only means too little later on.
