Fitting in with the other kids

I think it helps, especially in middle school.

Greetings Jean,

This did not help my then 6th grade daughter. She was attending a small, parochial school at that time.

Blessings, momo

since I was the sole arbiter of what my children wore to school LOL- that I could easily forget. All kidding aside- I think that middle level is a time when it is important to recognize kid’s own preferences about their clothing and the way they wany to look with their peers. On the other hand- those clothes are expensive and frequently violate my sense of propriety- so my children and I compromise. They have a certain amount that they are allowed to spend within any given season. Underwear and socks etc- have to come out of this. After that they are on their own. However- because I am MOM (note the caps here) I have final approval or rejection of what gets bought- and I use it , much to their disgust. Does it work all the time?- certainly not! But it works enough of the time that we can’t think of a way to make it better yet!

Robin

I think it depends a lot on the child. Some kids don’t dress like others and don’t care. It is part of their style. I think for kids with lower social skills, dressing different can make them a target. But dressing similarly doesn’t guarantee acceptance either. My daughter faced ridicule for her different clothes after we relocated. She was dressing younger than the other kids in the class, who in fourth grade, were dressing like they were fifteen. She had a hard time adjusting socially and dressing different only made it worse.

I feel like this might of lost the focus. My children,whether dressing like all the others,will never actually fit in. They will be their own person. Many times my own tried to dress,act,and be like everyone else. Eventually their differences shined through. To make the statement that dressing will be the thing to help them fit in is false. If an educator suggested this,they should of suggested far more. Social skills is probably the hardest thing for LD kids to learn. To develop the skills to be accepted in the mainstream,is to accept yourself first.
If this is difficult for your child,I would suggest time spent with a counselor,this helped mine tremendously.

MY own son likes to dress like his friends, baggy, name brands,etc. I too use the power of MOM to approve or disapprove. We stay after him to wear a belt, but it doesn’t matter if the shorts length is long. If it is expensive, I will foot part of the bill, he has to put in the rest.Shoes, pants whatever. Since he mows lots of lawns, he usually has plenty of money (my husband puts it in the bank, no ready cash for a 12 yr old!).
I don’t think a child needs to go to extremes to fit in, however, no one wants to be considered a nerd. Certainly we all remember those few in school? Or that maybe we were the nerd? I am only 4’9” I wore girls sizes until after I was 25. And back then the girls clothes actually looked like girls clothes, not sexy teenager clothes.
I refused to buy the really big leg pants for my son when they were first popular, I notice things are gradually getting back to what most of us moms consider regular looking. All in all though, I don’t think it is a bad thing to want to dress like your friends or classmates in middle school, eventually our kids will start having their own tastes and start dressing the way they want, not how the crowd wants.What’s the saying? This too shall pass!

Hi Jean,

I’m wondering what the issue is here. What kind of clothing is your son wanting to wear, and how is it different from what you consider to be appropriate? It’s one thing to dress like other students, but I’m wondering if there is something else that has you worried, like maybe gang clothing, or something like that…? Can you tell us more? JJ

I think everyone in this thread has made valuable points. But as the mom of an NLD child, who sometimes is oblivious to style, I also understand how important it can be for MOM to know what’s fashionable. This can be hard when you’re mid-40’s, and ALL the pre-teen clothes look alike, but I make a point of really looking at what the other kids at school are wearing.

I don’t buy my son really off the wall trendy stuff like the huge baggy pants that are practically falling down, but not everyone was wearing those anyway. My son hardly ever asks for a particular piece of clothing, (he’s just not aware enough of fashion to do that) so it’s never a matter of having to “allow” or “not allow” something. His only stron preference is for ANYTHING that has a dragon on it. That works quite nicely at the moment because it seems to be a popular theme. I don’t know what will happen if dragons fall out of fashion!

I don’t think that being fashionable dressed prevent teasing and bullying. But with a kid who has social skill issues to start with, I think it makes good sense to remove anything possible that can make them a target if you can.

If my son were to want to wear something that was not objectionable (dirty, holey, or improper) that I really thought might bring heat from other kids. (say wearing a “Pokemon” shirt at my son’s age, or a first grader wearing a “Barney” shirt) I would tell him I didn’t think it was a good idea, and why. If, when he understood the risks, he wanted to wear it anyway, I wouldn’t stop him. Sometimes, a personal fashion statement is more important to a kid than some teasing he might get as a result. But again, my kiddo has never cared enough about what he wore to make it much of an issue.

Karen

He is not aware of fashion and tends to like clothes that are comfortable and make him look nerdy and like a little adult. This did not create any problems in elementary school, however, I am concerned that the kids in middle school will make fun of him if he doesn’t dress more like them.

Yes! Give him a hand in picking things out. In junior high/high school I was similarly pretty unaware of what other people wore, even what shops they shopped in and yes, classmates made me aware of this. I was kind of helpless though - I just couldn’t figure out how they *knew* what looked good. I did figure it (more or less) out in time, but a little bit of advice from mom would have been great! Oh, incidently - it’s also useful to buy most of an autumn’s clothes all at once, so that you can more or less make everything match. For guys, after all, this is pretty easy - just get jeans, sneakers, rugby shirts and a couple of sweaters or sweatshirts or something. The stuff that kids in LLBean catalogues and so on wear sort of meets the comfortable and vaguely fashionable comprimise.