Why won't DD go out warmly dressed???

[IHeartKingThistle]

She's in Year 7. She's just gone to school in knee socks and a short sleeve shirt, and her jumper. She managed to leave her coat in DHs car yesterday which he's driven off with so I made her wear one of mine (just until she gets in) and she went off crying. Because I made her wear a coat. In -1.

The snow hasn't melted here because it is fucking freezing still and there is a bitter wind. How messed up is it that I'm now feeling like a crap mum for not wanting her to freeze? 

I think some, (not all) DC run hot, my dd never wears a coat unless it is pooring with rain or heavily snowing. My DP wears about 10 layers and moans about DD and I only wearing a single layer and a coat (me) and 2 layers no coat DD.

I point out that DD and I don't get cold like he does, everyone is different. Everytime he forces her to take her coat she ends up having to carry it after 30 mins because she is too hot.

I let her take a coat or not entirely her choice. She is 13.

Oh and my DD says she doesn't feel cold, just feels really restricted by wearing a coat.

I only started wearing coats when I was about 35. . Never really felt the cold before that.

I'm having similar battles with my DD, similar age to yours.

The difference is that she does actually get cold later on, and wish she had a coat, so I am constantly having to remind her to take one. The other day, she wanted to leave a sports activity in shorts and with no socks - the no socks happens quite a bit too. You'd think I was being hugely unreasonable to want her not to freeze. And no, she doesn't learn if I leave her to it, and she gets cold.

Wrt to the piano lessons, I have a rule with my DD about lessons - she has to see out either the term or the year, and then she can give up. This makes sure it's not a passing feeling, plus I think she needs to learn about commitment - once made, it has to be seen through. The only exception I've ever made to this was when one of her instructors at a hobby was treating her in such a way that she was coming out in tears - she left that almost instantly.

I think mostly it's to do with having to carry it around all day. Massive schools, no pegs, titchy lockers. It's a total pain in the arse to carry massive coat, massive bag etc all day.

In my day we all had a peg, but then there was only 90 in the year not 900 (I may have slightly over exaggerated there).

My year 7 ,son is the same ,he walks to school and is always arriving home with his coat in his bag maybe it's a yr 7 thing?

Youngest DD doesn't feel the cold... she goes in just short sleeve shirt and her blazer... she does wear tights tho. Eldest DD has vest, shirt, cardigan, blazer, thick lined coat, hat, scarf and gloves!

I remember in secondary school trying to get a coat over my blazer was a total pain and really uncomfortable, and then I either had to cart it about with me from lesson to lesson with nowhere to hang it up when I got there, or put it in my locker which was invariably right at the opposite end of school from my last class of the day. I never wore a coat unless it was deep snow and freezing, it was just too much hassle!

My DD refused to wear a coat the whole of her secondary school life. As soon as she went to college she began dressing for the weather.

Piano lessons.
There are many battles ahead of you OP as she reaches teens. Decide which ones you think really matter.
I took the view that they have an awful lot of things that are compulsory and piano wasn't one of them. let them quit and saved my energy and nagging for more important things.

We used to wait for the school bus in all weathers and it was often half an hour late, and they kept the door open in winter as it used to freeze closed, we still wouldn't have been seen in a coat, and a jumper was only for really cold days.

I'm 34 and very rarely wear coats. I have only worn a coat twice this winter. I genuinely don't need them. My mom always used to badger me about wearing a coat. She doesn't anymore...

I'd just leave her to it.

She may just not be cold. When I see people wearing jumpers, parkas, gloves, hats, snow boots, thermals etc etc I’m a bit . I suppose that they must be cold but I wouldn’t be able to move in that because I would immediately overheat.

maybe if lessons are boring get another teacher who is cooler?????

Kids are stupid as hell. I live in Sweden and trust me they're dumb here too. Big thing here is shoes - they'll have a warm coat alright (maybe not done up, but hey) but then they'll have Converses and ankle socks in -15. Give them ten years, then they'll cop on to their stupidity and realise they don't look cool, just cold.

I’d have done the same. My teenager is constantly losing his jumper and coat, or going out in a thin reflective as it is cool. He’s ended up with a bad lingering cold and I am cross at him! I basically guard the door now while he goes out giving him layers.

Yanbu we have a duty of care.

I remember at 16 being out all day wearing a thin jumper and a windbreaker. It started to snow and I turned to my mum and said genuinely surprised - I didn't realise it was THAT cold. I was not trying to be cool. I just did not feel cold.
Now I wear lots of layers and a coat and still feel cold some days.

I think a lot depends on the length of the journey. If they're doing a short walk to centrally heated school and there isn't - for example - heavy rain forecast they're okay.

On the other hand I was on holiday in Wales with an early twenties coat-refuser. He wanted to walk up Pen y Fan in a sweatshirt, shorts and light trainers on a day with a poor weather forecast. The person leading the walk permitted him to do this. The temperature dropped significantly as they climbed and there was steady light rain. Other people ended up lending him clothing, but he still had hypothermia...

I think sometimes the real adults do have to be adult.

Young, active people don't feel the cold so much, unless it's really bad.

My DD is pretty sensible - it may have been a stroke of luck that the really cold winter a few years back coincided with starting to get the bus to secondary school - and having to wait a long time at the bus stop because the freeze was causing breakdowns. That and being into watersports, on a reservoir up in the Pennines!

She probably doesn't feel as cold as me to be fair - I feel the cold so much. OK the coat battle will be dropped!

Im not being controlling about the piano lessons (and thanks to the PP for telling me she's not a robot ) - I've got no issue with either DC giving up things they don't enjoy. It's just that it's ONLY the lessons she doesn't like (she likes her teacher!) - she plays all the time, figures out chords to songs and performs them, does musical theatre outside school etc. So because she's clearly musical I think she'd regret giving it up. I will let her once she's finished the grade she's on, and I've said she doesn't have to do grades if she doesn't want to. If I didn't care about her feelings I'd just be forcing her to go and not discussing it at all!

I feel better about the coat thing now and I do remember being freezing at school but not wanting to wrap up warm. It's such a weird thing to rebel about!

My 9 year old DD claims to always be hot, and carries a coat (at my insistence) but rarely puts it on, so long as I know that she has it with her, I cannot do anything more and suspect that once she is out of my sight she puts it on! She also wears shorts and t-shirts a lot and says she's not cold. It's a power thing, I think.

I think it's just a young person thing. I see the teenagers walking past my house every morning looking like they must be freezing to death. Short skirts, coats undone if they're even wearing one. I always want to tell them to button up! (My mother in law will actually go up and tell them!).

JennieLee That is not about age. Some people are so stupid when hill walking. And early twenties is a proper adult, just maybe a stupid one.

Wixi She really might not be cold.

Maybe she just doesn't feel the cold. I never did at that age.
Sometimes I still wonder at how I'd go out so skimpily dressed on freezing cold days/evenings. It never affected my health at all.
I certainly wouldn't make a thing of it.

I'm quite the reverse now, I have to say.

A dd was at uni in Newcastle, where it was quite normal for local kids on Arctic winter evenings to go for their nights out in just a short sleeveless/short sleeved dress (girls) or a short sleeved shirt (boys) - apparently it was too much faff to take a coat that would need handing in to a cloakroom.
It was so easy to tell the locals (Hardy Viking genes?) from soft southern students!

I'm with FamilyReferee with the piano lessons - my ds is learning a musical instrument and he will have to carry it on to the the end of the year, then we will review. As long as I can though I will try to persuade him to keep learning his instrument. It depends as well on how much it costs, how much time she has for practising, what other commitments she has.

Re the coat issue, I wish schools had a big cloakroom with an attendant where they could leave their coats until the end of the day. Or bigger lockers (my secondary school didn't have lockers at all, you had to carry all you needed for that day around with you. PE and domestic science on the same day was a nightmare).