Helping Children Learn Clothing Independence

Children must all learn at some point how to dress themselves. With some help and appropriate clothing choices, this can be easily accomplished for most children. While support and guidance are always needed, there are some things you can do to help ease this time of learning into something much easier to grasp.

Your child should be able to start learning how to dress themselves around the time they are 2 years old. To help assist this learning process you should look for children’s clothing that feature simple designs and are not complicated. T-shirts are a great example; they have a single hole for each arm, while some more complicated styles feature several shoulder straps.

You should look for shirts that open in the front, as well as pants and skirts that open in the front so that they are able to see how to easily put the clothing on. Avoid styles that fasten or open in the back, as they tend to be almost impossible if not impossible for small children to learn when first beginning.

Other suggestions include looking for clothing that are simply pull on styles and do not have buttons, snaps, or zippers which take some time to master. You do need to ensure if you are using pull on styles, especially in pants, shorts, and skirts that the elastic waist is not too tight and causing your child to be uncomfortable.

If you do use clothing that has zippers, buttons or snaps make sure these are large enough that small fingers can easily handle them. The zippers, buttons, and such on adult clothes tend to be much too small for little fingers to handle. Children’s clothing should have very large buttons and zippers to allow plenty of time and material for your youngster to hold while learning.

When it comes to coats and hoods, you should look for a hood that is attached. When you have a separate hood and jacket, you are increasing the chances of it getting lost and not being found again, until your child has outgrown it. This makes the expense of clothing your child go up, as well as creates frustration. Many jackets have hoods that snap or zip on, as long as your child cannot easily separate the pieces these are fine to use.

Despite having children’s clothing that is designed to help make learning to get dressed easier, it will still take some time for your child to learn how to master these skills. Before you know it they will have mastered these skills and be ready to tackle the next task.