How does your child express their individuality? Tell us for a chance to win a £100 John Lewis voucher plus picture book Odd Dog Out

[SorchaMumsnet]

Rob Biddulph's beautiful new picture book Odd Dog Out is all about blazing a trail, and being who you are. To celebrate its publication, we're asking you to share how your mini superstars dare to be different.

It's a dog's life in the big city but one dog doesn't quite fit in. It's lonely being the odd dog out when all she wants to do is find her place in the world. She's willing to travel far on her quest, but it might take a different kind of journey for her to realise that maybe she's exactly where she needs to be.

A sublimely sunny and exquisitely illustrated tale about fitting in and standing out, from the award-winning and tremendously talented Rob Biddulph.

We'd love to hear how your little ones to express their individuality (and how you help them to do so) - whether it's insisting on wearing their favourite character costume 24/7 or only eating certain coloured food. For a chance to win a copy of Odd Dog Out and £100 voucher to spend at John Lewis, just tell us on this thread.

This discussion is sponsored by HarperCollins and will close at midday on 22 February

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DS1 isn't happy with his outfit unless every item is a different colour. If his socks are blue stripy then the pants will be red, the trousers green and the tshirt orange. The idea of coordinating clothes is anathema to his 6-year-old mind brighter is better.

Doing funky dancing.
Amazing lego models of the craziest things.
Role play.... with things like a card board box blankets and plastic animals.
Plastic play food meals such as a squirrel sandwich 🙈
I've been in and out of hospital a lot recently and my ds writes me stories. I most recently got one called SANTA NEEDS A WEE 😂

Love my babies with all my heart. They are unique little things.💗

My 3 year old loves to break dance. He loves to surprise people by starting off with a song, then a normal dance then dropping on to his knees, flipping over and doing back spins! Done know where he got that from :) he also won't drink fizzy drinks at all prefers water, doesn't like fast food or chocolate. It's great but doesn't always go down well at parties.

Rainbows! Life is one big rainbow for my little girl - colour is everything, so her outfits are spectacular and vibrant - she's decorated her own lampshade in rainbow colours

She 'expresses' herself through her clothes and accessories, from a really early age she wanted to choose what she wore which inevitably leads to a mish mash outfit and about 10 hairslides at once! Some days I look and think people will think we've gone mad dressing her like that, other times I just think I'm really glad she isn't desperate to look like everyone else (which if you think about it is a lesson my 4 year old could actually teach mum!)

My DD doesn't eat sandwiches. Or buns around burgers or hotdogs. Or toast.
But she will randomly ask for a piece of bread to eat all on its own
She's 12.

Ds2 will only wear matching socks for their first ever wear. After that, he unpairs them and will only wear them odd!

My DS loves to dance at any given opportunity. He loves Michael Jackson and will proudly show off the entire routine to 'Black and White'. He's loved him since before he was 3 and still loves him now he's almost 5.

My 3year old gives people bits of paper with there super powers on. She has some big scars on her chest and we tell her that they gave her super powers so she says that everyone needs them. She loves to wear a cape but after it got stuck in a door she now has one on her teddy instead

DD (3) has 2 favourite outfits: being a crocodile or being a nudey. It's fine if she wants to go to the shop as a crocodile. Less fine when she strips off in the park.

1. Clothes, as others have said. She often wears multiple skirts / wants to be a particular pattern or colour.
2. Drawing and painting or collage of something. Always fun.
3. Putting on a show.

My daughter requests bowls of mussels & prawns in restaurants & olives as appetisers! She gets lots of raised eyebrows

1. Wearing hat, wellies and scarf INSIDE the house, and insisting on going without when going outside.
2. Finish his snack at his own pace. And I mean at his own pace - will not allow us to throw anything away even if he has been struggling with it for over an hour - he will come back to it when he is good and ready.
3. Specific bedtime toys for specific days of the week --> the T-Rex is NOT for Mondays!!

Always wanting to wear a pair of wellington boots all year round even in the summer on a really hot day.

Ever since she could make her opinions known my daughter has chosen her own outfits, which tend to be random and rarely match. It's not worth the battle even if I wanted to squash her own interesting sense of style.

Son2 won't eat tomatoes or peppers unless they are the orange variety

My DD(11)has been boxing since she was 5 and hopes to represent England at the Olympics one day. My DD (4) can sit on his hair and only does the opposite of what I ask. He only has half a heart but is the most brave and fierce person I know.

I've always excouraged 'eccentric' and 'quirky' in my household. In fact if someone thinks I'm weird I actually feel it is a compliment. I hope this has rubbed off on my kids to be who they are without worrying what others think. I loved it when my son asked for a pink dolls house when he was three as there was no awareness of the gender stereotyping that so sadly happens. Similarly he once went out dressed in pink and insisted that I call him 'Dora the explorer'. He also loved wearing his PJ's to pre-school. Rather than make a fuss and stop him, I was quite happy to let him - what harm would it do! The one thing I did put a stop to was when he managed to strip down to his pants in about 3 seconds flat when we were running late for pre-school one day - I did insist he would actually need to wear clothes - apart from anything else it was the middle of the winter at the time!

My ds is a splendidly cheery little chap. Despite showing no signs of actually wanting to sleep in his own bed, he is otherwise an entertaining little person.

On Saturday he sang us a song all about his breakfast crumpet.
Today he has dressed as Elsa, and tried to carry me to school (he's 4) as it's my birthday so I need a treat.

He loves to wear fancy dress but as he has an older sister most of our fancy dress is princess-y, but he doesn't care and will go out wearing his princess dress. I'm dreading the day that someone tells him that boys don't do that.

My eldest wore a hat constantly for a year, it was her security blanket. I've put it in her memory box, it makes me smile just looking at it.

By putting together her own very colourful outfits and doing strange things to her hair. Indeed the US label Little Mismatched is a fave.

I let my girls choose what they wear and how their hair is done. Dd1 is very girly and loves pink, dd2 loves blue And hates girly dresses and anything in her hair.

my dd (8) has eaten chicken soup (homemade) for breakfast every morning for the past 3 years. In the last 3 weeks though she has gone off it (which is a shame because I have it stockpiled in the freezer!) and now eats rice and gravy for breakfast every morning!

She does have a chronic condition (missing her small intestine) which means she craves salt in particular...but also means she needs to eat lots of food in general to get the nutrition in, so we just go with the different choices :)

My DD1 would wear clothes pegs in her hair and was known at nursery as Peggy Sue, Each morning she would hunt down the peg bag hidden in various places by thoughtless parents who always forgot where it was until one day 18mths later she moved onto odd socks. Just waiting for the next development phase.

my 5 year old telling her teacher all the gory details of life on her cattle.farm

Choosing clothes, starting with picking between 2 outfits, then choosing from their whole range of clothes still bought by you and then moving on to picking some items themselves in the shops. They come up with some wacky choices sometimes but as long as it's weather appropriate I let them get on with it.