This scene is repeated every morning in many homes: children crying and refusing to wear the clothes that parents have chosen for them. Parents angry about having to deal with that situation when we are already late for school and, consequently, later for our jobs.
“We want our children to learn to think for themselves, but too often we think for them, even in areas where they could safely express their opinion or decide,” says Jane Nelsen, the founder of Positive Discipline in her book ‘Educate with firmness and affection’.
Does my son’s choice put him in danger?
“How many decisions do children make throughout the day? Practically none,” psychologist Alberto Soler told us in a presentation at an event. Educating is everything. And if we think about it, he’s right. Children do not choose what time they get up, the hours they are in class, what they eat in the dining room, the snack we bring them after school, whether we go to the park or the supermarket, whether they shower at seven or eight…
Obviously, there are many decisions that they do not make because they should not or cannot make them. They are still tremendously immature to do so, however there are small territories in which they could decide and we do not let them do itand the choice of clothing is one of them.
“Children need to ‘rebel’ to test their strengths and find out who they are. If we allow them to rebel in safe ways (like letting them choose their clothes, even if we don’t like what they choose), when they are older they won’t have the need to to rebel in areas that are not so safe, like drugs,” says Nelsen.
“We want our children to learn to think for themselves, but too often we think for them”
In this way, When we don’t know whether or not we should let our child make a certain decision, we can ask ourselves this question: could this decision put my child in danger? If the answer is no, there would be no problem in doing so.
Benefits of allowing our children to choose their clothes
In addition to avoiding all those morning tantrums in which our children express their frustration at not being able to choose the clothes with which they feel most comfortable or identified, allowing them to choose their clothes as soon as possible has other benefits:
1.It will allow them to develop their personality
two.It will allow them to experience the consequences of their choices and to learn from them for themselves.
3.They will promote their autonomy. A child, to be autonomous as an adult, needs to learn to be so from a young age. And for this, it is essential to find those areas in which children can decide without putting their safety at risk.
Four.They will feel valued, respected and taken into accountwhich will increase your self-esteem.
If you have decided to let your child choose the clothes… Plan!
Once we have decided that it is more important for us that our children feel capable, autonomous and confident than the fact that they go together well, planning is essential so that this decision does not bring us new problems. In this sense, Jane Nelsen gives the following recommendations:
We choose the clothes the previous afternoon
We can integrate the choice of clothes into the routine before going to sleep. If they have enough time to choose (in the mornings we do not have time), we will be eliminating many of the problems that may arise.
We keep the clothes of other seasons
During the winter, we keep the summer clothes in the storage room or in storage boxes. During the summer, we keep the winter one. This reduces the number of unreasonable choices our children can make.
We take you shopping
As our children develop stronger preferences, we should take them shopping so they can be involved in the buying process, not just choosing the clothes they already have in their closet.
For this, the logical thing is to establish before going to the store, the needs: 2 pants, a jacket, two coats…
We set a budget for clothes
Children are more likely to take care of their clothes when they know they have to last until the next time we go shopping.
Dirty clothes that are not in the basket are not washed
So that the children also take responsibility for the clothes being available, we can establish as a rule that the clothes that are not in the dirty clothes basket are not washed.
Uniform
If our son has to go to school in uniform and resists a few mornings, let him experience the consequences of his bad choice at school.