I know I can't complain really but it's so annoying.... school asked for fancy dress for the children and nobody really bothered except us.

[YourVagesty]

So my son's school had a Wales themed day the other day (we live in Wales) and the school asked that children dress up in related fancy dress (dragons, Welsh ladies, daffodils etc).

I dressed my five year old son up as a dragon and was HORRIFIED when I put him on the bus because most other kids were just in Wales sports tops. Total zero effort from the other parents.

I know I don't have the right to moan because I know not everybody can afford to buy a costume, or they don't have the time to make one. But I'm really pissed off at the lack of effort. I feel bad that I followed the instructions and basically made my son the odd one out for the day.

I'm not sure what my point is, I'm just being annoyed out loud I suppose. My son has only just started at that school and I wanted things to go smoothly and that has really upset me.

Arghhhhhh!

I think you've learned a valuable lesson - that you shouldn't expect other people to respond to requests the same way you do. So you have to do what's right for you.

Was your child happy with their costume? If yes, you've done the right thing. If no, then next time ask them what they want to wear.

Fancy dress is quite a faff, the other parents did nothing wrong.

For the love of god, don't do this.

Also, don't get discouraged OP, Wales and an a sports shirt is an easy and logical connection. Kids were probably happy and parents relieved.

They might be better on book day or belonging day or whatever they have. Our school had some good ones for belonging day. Lots of Polish dresses and Punjabi pajamas and scout uniforms. Meanwhile American me doesn't have good traditional dress but our son does have four citizenships at home- dark blue jumper and four iron on flag patches. Was it lazy? Was it reflective? Who knows. He liked it, could explain it, and I can't sew a button so it worked for us.

It's early in the school year. Give the other parents a chance. And see how your son feels- he might love that he's got something different, he might not.

And now you know for next year. Fancy dress days being phased out at our school *in Wales

Even if I had had the time /money ... My children liked being comfortable more than they liked being in elaborate costumes for an entire school day.

My son has asd, on these days he had zero idea of what to wear or what anyone else is doing . I hated it, i didn’t want to go too far and make him a target or do too little and look like we couldn’t be bothered. The school has break the rules day and one of the things is bring a teddy, every year he did it from nursery so at 11 he still wanted to take his teddy in I we so worried he would be bullied (he was). I hate all that stuff

You get it - this is exactly where I'm coming from. It's awful isn't it? I hate these social tripwires, i'd rather they didn't have days like these.

But you’re considering complaining to the school because other parents don’t engage with it? You’re saying incredibly conflicting things.

You're being ridiculous. Most normal people make do with whatever they've got at home for these days, as is the expectation. I don't know anyone who would go to that extent and expense for a fancy dress day at school.

You chose to go above and beyond and now you're moaning about it. Nobody forced you.

What did your DS think? I would have thought at 5 the other children would either think the dragon was cool or not particularly notice.

At my DCs school, lots do 'properly' dress up. It's a bit of a minefield for the older boys, but there are still plenty of kids up to 11 wearing full outfits.

How old? If primary school, especially year 4 or younger I’d say what does it matter your DS probably loved it, high school, you read the room wrong. Year 5-6 so long as your son was happy, that’s all that matters.

I did have to gently tell my ASD son not to do WBD in high school, some times it’s just a bit of common sense.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1465415010998181&vanity=RichardFranksComedy&http_ref=eyJ0cyI6MTc5MDA1NjQ2ODAwMCwiciI6Imh0dHBzOlwvXC93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbVwvIn0%3D

this always makes me howl with laughter

Sorry he’s 5! What does it matter?! Why would you be horrified?!

This. I bloody hated fancy dress days. Wish schools would stop them.

And yeah, as much as teachers say they like home made or ‘individual’ costumes, kids just want to fit in and look like everyone else.

Take it as lesson learnt OP.

Been there a couple of times before. The school once had a superhero day so I actually made capes from scratch and got them to make their own masks. Basically no one else had bothered. Another time was different but the school asked everyone to make a poster based on a place they’d recently visited. DS did his but was the only one and the teachers had even forgotten they asked so looked confused when he handed it over.

These things happen. People likely thought a costume for one day was a waste.

It says a lot about the demographic of the parents at the school. Mine have been to various schools over the years due to work/moving and there has never been a school where the majority of the parents didn’t bother. It would have been social death to be the one without a decent costume (which is an issue in and of itself). There’s nothing worse than doing the right thing per the school’s instructions and then feeling like your child is the one left out. Sports shirts would definitely not have been allowed where we were.

Exactly. OP you were embarrassed, I bet your child wasn't unless you made him feel it was something to be embarrassed about. Hes 5. He will have had a great fuss made of him and everyone will admire your efforts. Plus you only saw the kids on that one school bus? There were pribably a few others who fancied making a big effort but you now know that isnt compulsory. No actual harm done.

I just rolled with it but I love costume making. On Victorian day DS wanted to go as a Victorian strongman everyone else had a flat cap on. He loved it.

This is for a laugh by Jack Dee a 3 min skit about school fancy dress.

I worked FT then with a commute

The dreaded dressing up days! And there were so many of them, and multipled by 2! I would have been that parent that you're disappointed in, late notice, juggling work and tbf after around 5yrs old also tends to be a battle with the child too. World Book day is the worst, I always felt is was never about the kids! Just the teachers and the already perfect, often SAHM ones living vicariously through their children that enjoyed it.

Among DD’s local/school circle, the WhatsApp or neighbours group is used for borrowing or passing on outgrown outfits, or else it’s a rummage in charity shops. I don’t think dd has ever actually bought a dressing up outfit, and TBH it’ll be a cold day in hell before she ever makes one! She’s seriously allergic to needles and thread…

My kids hated dressing up days.

My son hated dressing up, he was very shy and did not like being looked at. I tried to tell him that if he was the only one not dressed up then he’d get looked at even more but he was too young to understand.

World Book Day was awful, I struggled to find a character he would dress up as! The best I could do was let him wear his usual clothes and carry a prop linked to the character - but the character has to wear normal clothes in the books! One year he went as Burglar Bill wearing a striped rugby shirt and carrying a duffle bag but I wasn’t allowed to stick a “Swag” label on the bag. Each year I had to tell the teacher in advance who he was.

i was so relieved that the school only did fancy dress on this day each year and at secondary school charity fundraising was limited to non uniform days!

If he didn’t want to get dressed up then why didn’t you just let him be? He wouldn’t have been the only one choosing not to participate. My kids hated dressing up once they got to year 5/6 so I just let them crack on as it’s their choice, there were always other kids who didn’t dress up too so they were never alone and I’m sure that’s the case in the vast majority of schools. Most kids don’t care that much about what the others are doing - dress up or don’t, make a massive effort or make a token effort - seems more like it’s the parents getting all het up over this, just let your kids make their own choices and release yourself from the stress.

Where did I say I went above and beyond? I bought a cheap dragon outfit on Amazon. I thought I'd put minimum effort in tbh, didn't realise the bar was even lower than that.

Lesson learned!

Thanks to everybody who has been nice - this isn't about me, it's about my son not standing out for the wrong reasons. Most of you get that.

There's got to be a WhatsApp group for my son's class. I'll find out, seems like it's really useful for a lot of people on here.