Allowing your child to dress themselves teaches crucial lessons.
By: zoe sokatch
When I look back at images of myself from preschool and early elementary school I laugh at the ridiculous outfits I concocted. Bright patterned tights, pink cowboy boots, skirts over jeans and dresses over shirts, all accompanied by my blond bob hair cut and a bright smile. My outfits screamed, “look at me” and showcased so many of my budding personality traits. So yes, maybe my outfits attracted too much attention, maybe I tried to dress like a tween in a Disney original, and maybe my choices weren’t so fashionable, but those mix match outfits taught me from an early age to hone my creativity and express myself without shame.
“For children, creativity is as natural as breathing, until they are cultured out of it” says Catherine Davis Hayes a coordinator for the RISD Young Artist Program. This sentiment is true, all of your children have creative ideas and insights that adults and older teens have been “cultured out of”. In order for them to feel confident in those ideas and to share them with the world, they need to learn the art of self expression. One of the easiest ways to foster this expression in children is to give them independence and one of the simplest ways to give your child this independence is to allow them to dress themselves.
Clinical psychologist Dr Rachel Johnson stated in an interview with the Huffington Post that at 4-6 years old children should be able to dress themselves. She went on to say that “all children thrive on being independent” and that even “toddlers enjoy choosing what to wear.”
The Important Lessons:
From my experience in being able to choose what I wore from an early age, I learned three very important things.
1. First, it allowed me to say who I am to the world.
Clothing is a key element in first impressions and a way for people to gain a sense of who you are before even speaking to you. If your child is choosing how they dress, they are also choosing how they want to present to the world. This choice should be theirs and theirs alone.
2. The second it allowed me to do is understand myself better .
If your child has control over their clothing choices it allows time for exploration into what makes them feel good about themselves, happy, and comfortable.
3. The third important thing allowing me to choose my own clothing did was create a sense of trust between me and my parents.
If you allow your child this independence they understand that you trust them to make decisions and to express themselves freely. This tells them that you will always be there to support who they are and who they want to be.
Even if your child wants to wear an outfit that might not be appealing to your aesthetics or sensible or even costume like, encouraging them to style themselves will have a lasting positive impact on their independence and creativity. For more information check the links below.
Huffington Post: What Should Your Child Be Able To Do And At What Age? https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/14/what-should-your-child-be-able-to-do-and-at-what-age_n_7369008.html
Scholastic: Self Expression in Preschool
Angelibebe Blog: How Fashion Affects Kids
https://www.angelibebe.com/blog/2015/11/how-fashion-affects-kids/
