To ask WHY there are little girls with bare legs and ankle socks in this weather ?

[BlahBlahYeahYeah]

Are you the owner of one of these amazingly resilient (possibly frozen) little girls, sporting bare legs and ankle socks in Mary Jane type shoes in this weather?

Can someone PLEASE explain this mystery to me, because I just cannot get my head round it.

As a parent to a school age dd and toddler dd, I couldn't contemplate bare legs in this weather for either of them.

Are these parents BU? Or am I??

I'm in Scotland but I don't think it's all that cold. I grew up in New England and cold is when it hurts to breathe and frostbite within a short time is a real risk.

DC don't seem to feel the cold either. DD was moaning at me yesterday when I told her to button up her coat and DS rows in this weather for 2 hours twice a week without any gloves on (no one wears gloves).

When I say underdressed I mean no jacket. Its 1 degrees here.

Dd1 (5) is always hot (to the point she overheated and stopped breathing as a baby as I had put a snow suit on her to take her out in the snow). She's generally in a skirt and ankle socks for school, never wears a cardigan but I do manage to get a thin coat on her most days.

In contrast her little sister today is wearing 3 vests, school shirt, cardigan, tights, school trousers, thick coat, hat and gloves.

They both are much better placed to know how many layers of clothing they need to be comfortable than anyone else might be so I trust them to know what they need to wear.

DS's school uniform shorts and long socks. They don't seem to feel the cold.

DS1 (10) will not wear a coat under any circumstances....has a very thick school jumper though.

If it snows they can go and put school tracksuit bottoms on......

If theyre walking and generating some heat, fine but just sitting in a buggy with no coat seems odd. Maybe I'm projecting because I'm fecking freezing and I slipped about three times! Hate winter!

British people are notoriously poor at dressing appropriately for the weather though.

My friend is one of those who says that her children don't feel the cold and never complain. They are never wrapped up. And they may not complain, but if you feel their little hands they are freezing, but they just don't seem to notice.

I'm out of step with everyone on this thread, but I have always fought the appropriate clothing battle.

I picked up DD from school the other day. It was horribly cold and she had bare legs and ankle socks.

STBXH had got her dressed and taken her to school and hadn't thought to put her tights on (which I had provided).

Twat.

So on the off chance it was my child the OP is referring to, I am truly sorry and it won't happen again

My dd is very nearly 13

Above knee skirt and under the knee socks

Her choice

Oh and the boys don't wear a coat (we are down south so not quite as cold

Now I know babies pull them off but really use two minutes of your busy time to put them back on

Hahahahahahahahaha. Sorry, but just had to laugh at that as you either have no experience of babies/toddlers or had a sock and shoe loving one!
My eldest DS would NOT keep his socks and shoes on when in a buggy/pram. The first thing he did on getting and about would be whip his socks and shoes/bootees off.
So, I'd dutifully put them back on again and set off on our merry way.
Only to be accosted 5 minutes down the street by a passerby. "Excuse me, your little boy's lost his shoe" and handed me it back.
Little so and so had only gleefully tossed it back out of the buggy when I wasn't looking. So it'd go back on. Then off. Then on. Ad infinitum.
Putting tights on him instead would have resulted in him screaming murder.
In the end I ended up getting one of them foot/pram muff things so if he did pull them off he'd be cosily and warmly tucked under there. No waving tootsies and kept all snuggily warm.
Even now I have to nag him to wear a coat. He'd happily run about in a t-shirt if I let him. Which I don't. Although he would given half the chance. Argh.

DD1 (8) wears knee socks that are always half way down her legs. I remind her it's cold and we do have an awful lot of tights she can wear.
She also pulls an Elsa and says the cold doesn't bother her - and I don't think it does, or she'd put on said tights.
Her brother (10) hardly wears a coat, and wore his school uniform shorts by choice until the end of November...

I am aware of being judged (and now a thread - are you in SE London OP?), but I figure I provide the appropriate clothing, I remind them and at 8 and 10 if they were cold, they would do something about it. :o)

Their dad grew up in Scotland and never ever wears a coat (to my great annoyance), and I think they have inherited his hardy genes.

ds was a shoe/sock refused as a toddler. i used to put socks on him, then a fleecy onsie, and a snow suit. little sod WILL have warm feet!! lol.

As others have said, some kids just will not wear clothes adequate for the weather. MY 6yo charge refuses to wear a jumper. Both me and his Mum will put it on him before he goes to school and it's off before he walks into his classroom. He tries to get out on his breaks without a coat too!
His little sister peels coats off on our walks as well. She's not even 2 yet!
I think that they just don't feel the cold as much

gazpacho I had to suggest the same regarding my last charge, would not keep socks on and those "sock on" contraptions do not work so foot muff it was. Until she worked out the exact angle to wiggle too to swing her legs out of it

and a snow suit.

Oo, forgot about them. They were brilliant! Had several of those. Very cute, they were. No way of kicking your legs out of THEM. Ha, foiled your cunning plan, small one...

I haven't read the whole thread. My DD (age 6) chooses to wear socks & skirt to school. She has tights. She chooses not to wear them. I think she is old enough to make that decision for herself, so she goes to school like that.

I'm one of those parents - or I was the other day. Was so busy rushing round doing everything before leaving for work, it was only when we got to breakfast club I realised DD was in socks and skirt. Arggghh. No time to race home and back as I'd have missed the train and the earliest I can get to work (60 miles away) is 10am anyway. And it was a day I could not be late.

Judge away!

My dd is 22 months, she will not wear a blanket or cosy toes over her legs in the pushchair and I won't put tights underneath her leggings because that would drive me mad if I were her. Thankfully she will wear a coat, hat and gloves so I doubt she's cold really and I'm sure her legs won't fall off!
Seeing children under dressed is something that I probably would have judged on before I had dd and realised how difficult it is to get a child to do something that they don't want to

My 8 year old daughter is a hat refuser, she will wear tights to school but only with shorts.
As for Mary Jane style shoes, there's not really a great deal of choice. No boots or trainers allowed at our school, it's pretty strict on uniform.

I once read that as long as extremeties are warm then legs etc don't get too cold. Don't some uber posh boys' boarding schools insist on shorts all year round anyway, Gordonstoun and the lie? I think it's a non-issue.

I got told I was insane the other day going out at lunchtime to pick DD up from preschool with just a cardie on - it wasn't that cold!

I get asked sometimes "aren't you cold?" No, I'm not, I just hate being too warm! Always have done. Some just must feel the cold more than others.

dd2 only wears skirts.

She has sensible trousers, socks etc, but she only wears skirts.

Last year she wore wooly tights with her skirts, fine.

This year I found in the hand-me-down-from-the-cousins bag some over the knee grey school socks. So now she won't wear tights, but will only wear over the knee socks, which inevitably end up as crinkly ankle socks.

I have persuaded her that dresses look fine with leggings, but now she only wears socks with them if she is leaving the house. (because she doesn't ever condescend to wear skits at the weekend, only dresses) and cardigans and jumpers are off limits, as they 'don't go with my dress'

I only insist when she will be outside, otherwise, I figure she is now old enough to decide for herself if she wants to be cold.

Having lived in a country where is was regularly -20 degrees in the winter, I really am not bothered by children not wearing hats (and it is a myth that you loose all your body heat through your head anyway)

Tights don't last as long as socks do. Dd2s all have holes in them and I only bought them in October.

She's still wearing the long grey socks I had bought dd1 4 years ago!

Both my younger DDS won't wear skirts

Arghh won't wear trousers

I don't see the problem with socks rather than tights. I wouldn't have a girl in ankle socks and a short skirt but ankle socks and knee length skirt seems fine to me, my daughter hated woolly tights when young like me and knee length socks fall down and become ankle socks anyway..

Actually, on a more serious note.

When we lived in a very cold country, the children had no choice. They had to wear full on sleepsuit/snowsuits, tights, trousers, oversocks and fur lined boots.
They had to wear gloves, hats that come down under the chin, and scarves tied on backwards so it was a thick strip over their mouth, nose and chin.

Even aged 6, and knowing it was very, very cold outside, my kids insisted they were warm enough and didn't need to put on these clothes. I do think that until they can FEEL the cold, they don't really believe you, I once heard it said "Your body has no memory, which is why you end up taking a jumper on holiday, your body can't imagine not needing it"

I used to open the front door, so that the freezing air from the stairwell came in, and we would stand in the doorway for a moment, and then I would start getting them dressed in the extra layers. As soon as they felt the cold air on their face, they were willing to put on warmer clothes.

I sometimes do it now with dd - go out of the back door for a minute without your coat while I put my coat on. She does, and is then much more willing to put on her coat.