Aug 31 2009
Tips For Helping Your Child To Dress
If you are a first time parent you will be new to the experience of how toddlers behave and develop regarding clothes. You will want to buy durable but attractive clothes such as cupcake clothing at a good price as obviously they are growing every day.
You will find that between the period of 12 and 18 months, most children will begin to try to undress themselves. This will start with tugging at their socks or trying to take off their nappies, which could be a bit messy if they succeed. But as they are developing with cupcake girls clothes or something similiar you want to encourage this in the best way.
Once they reach the terrible twos they have more often than not mastered the task of pulling off all their clothes and now they want to step up a level. This means that they will want to mimic you and be able to put on their clothes as well as take them off.
In the early stages of their attempts to put on clothes they will get themselves into a mess, getting all tangled up in bits and pieces. But as they keep trying they are increasing the skills required and one day you will see that your child can manage to put on a simple garment. This will progress over the years with practice making perfect and by the time they reach four or five years of age they are now mastering the more difficult jobs such as buttoning shirts and tying shoe laces.
Assuming you have a good sense of humour the in between learning period from 18 months to four years will require you not to laugh, and to find ways to show them how to do it better. Some of the tangly situations that they end up in are really funny.
If you can remember being a child all the better, as you may remember the frustration of not being able to do things that your parents could do, so really lots of patience and encouragement and creative help are the best solution.
You do not want to give your child an insecurity complex. However you will find that you need to balance your help as frustration can lead onto anger and the will to do it for himself is very strong, so too much interference can be annoying. You need to help him to learn but let him do as much as possible himself.
Once the will for some independence has started the first hurdle will be choosing an outfit. There was the day not so long ago that this was totally your job so do not let it become a conflict when your child expresses the wish to decide on an outfit. There are some parents who never let a child decide what to wear. However this does not encourage independence or creativity so finding a balance here is also important.
If your child knows that on certain occasions he can choose this is a start. If your child goes to a pre-school where there is a uniform or etiquette then this solves some parts of the choice. Try starting off with what colour the child would like to wear and present him with a few choices and go from there. Doing simple exercises like this gives narrow choices and helps the child categorise to some extent the process of choosing clothes.
Another occasion may require outdoor clothes so make this an interesting exercise by running through the activities your child has to look forward to and helping him choose clothes that he likes but will be practical for the day ahead.
When the outfit has been chosen there are little things you can do to help him put on the clothes. You should lay out the clothes for him and keep him interested in the easier jobs while you subtly do the more difficult. If he does get tangled up do not take over, straighten out the clothes and let him continue, this will lead to more skill and more independence.
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