To not dress my son up for World Book Day

[Saydeesunshine1994]

Ds is in nursery, and the whole school is dressing up as either Wally or Wanda for World Book Day, Ds doesn't want to (he wants to dress up as the dog from Room on the Broom), he's never "read" the where's wally books although he has a wide collection of books and is read to every night which he really enjoys. We've shown him the costume, told him his friends will be dressing up too and he is adamant that he doesn't want to. AIBU to not force him to wear it? We have nothing suitable to make one so it will mean going and buying things. I don't really want to have a massive power struggle on something that in my opinion doesn't matter.

Update! My Dp has been ringing the school all day and moaning so they've just sent a text out saying that children can now wear Wally costume as advertised, school uniform or a book costume of their choice. Yay! now to tell Ds, he'll be so excited

How many times did your DP ring the school you know they have kids to teach?
You and your child got what you wanted. I wonder what the reason behind the school rule was. Maybe trying to protect kids who have previously felt left out, or trying to encourage a group who would previously think they were too cool to join in.

Ds hates any dress up from preschool.

First red nose day I mentioned it once and had such an upset reaction I didn't mention it again.
Just when I got his clothes out for the day I popped a t-shirt with the red Arrows-one of his favourite t-shirts to wear.

Imagine my surprise when I found that he had got up and changed (for the first, and possibly only time at preschool age) the clothes into things with no red on at all. He'd even changed his pants as they had a tiny red patch on.
I took a t-shirt with him to preschool and said to the staff if he wants it, it's there. He didn't. There was a lovely photo of the entire group in almost totally red clothes and there in the middle ds wearing not a smattering of red. I threatened to put a caption on it "He dressed himself"

He's year 5 now and still hates dress up. He's going as the school prospectus.

Brocollirevolution, it ended up being twice and if your schools office staff are teaching your children I'd be worried. My child and I did get what we want, so did everybody else because we weren't the only ones complaining. We were just the only ones who actually asked the school about what could be done. My partner did ask why they had chosen to dictate what the kids dressed up as and they explained that they thought it would be easier for parents. (It wasn't) If what you said had actually been their reason then I'm sure they would have said, if they had told us that the children had actually voted and took part in choosing what everyone dressed up as then we would have gone along with it. I'm sure they had the best intentions all along but my partners right, why smile to their face and moan behind their backs? If they really wanted to make this easier for everyone and include even children who don't want to dress up then why couldn't they do a book swap? Or a loose theme, where there are plenty of characters to choose from?

Witchend your Ds sounds great , some kids just really do know their own mind! I bet he'll be the most original one there!

Well you did say your DP had been "ringing all day"

I overexaggerated because until last night I didn't know how many exact times he had rang or what he had exactly said to them. So sorry, hope you can all find it in your hearts to forgive me.

My boys hated dressing up when they were in nursery so I sent them in their own clothes with appropriate prop - one went as Harry and his bucket of dinosaurs, the other as Alfie.

englishmummyinwales what a good idea! Win win for everyone!

DS, aged 7 or 8, decided he simply cba about dressing up days at school. So he insisted he was going in uniform and dressing up as a "student".

He never had any problem doing that.

Our HT always points out that lots of children in books dress as normal children and still have great adventures so it's fine to come in normal clothes but ne prepared to talk about your character.
Eg almost all David Walliams and Jacqueline Wilson characters, famous five, Charlie bucket etc etc

Raspberry what book is he a student from? Let tshirt if options fir school stories!