Can I offer her this coat?

[iheartdusty]

There is a girl in DD's class who is wearing the same thin, outgrown jacket she wore all through last winter.

I know her mum slightly, we chat in the playground, and DD is friends with this girl. The mum has several difficult things going on in her life and has no cash to spare.

I have a nice warm 'nearly new' coat which my mum got and which we have no need for, DD has more coats than she needs.

How can I possibly offer it to her without hurting her feelings? Anything I say will have the message that I have spotted her daughter is wearing something that looks inadequate.

Help please!

'My mum gave me a bag of hand-me-downs, do you want to have a look through too?'

I love hand-me-downs

been there done this, speak to mum just say "oh i meant to ask you, my dd has a lovely coat shes totally grown out of and has hardly worn and i hope you dont think im being cheeky but it looks just your dd's size and i hate throwing stuff away, would you like me to bring it in"?

Just say that you have a spare coat and would she like it? I offered a coat to one of the nans that pick up her grandkids as she was frozen in her thin coat, she accepted it.

ok that wont owrk if theyre the same size?..you could try, she ahs two coats very similar?

The parents of all the kids in our school do this al lthe time.Noone distinguishes between rich and poor,general consensus is that it is mad for good stuff to go to waste.

Just hand it over saying 'If you don't fancy it,pass it onto someone else.'I am about to pass on dd's newly outgrown coat to another parent and it never struck me that she might view it as patronising.

I would say that you were sorting through some clothes, noticed her DD was a similar size and would she like it. Make sure you make it clear there is no offence taken if she would rather not have hand me downs. Gives her a get-out without worrying about offending you.

all v good ideas, thank you.

wrap it up for christmas - its rude to reject a gift

Seriously - I think the "Sorry to be so cheeky but..." is the best route.

We're always being given clothes ofr dd2 form dd1's firneds. I think it is nice.

Oh lord, really what moondog said.

Something along the lines of, "I don't know if this is your thing, but we've got blahdiblah lying spare around the house, it's too good for the charity shop really, so I wondered if you'd have any use for it?"

oh i love being offered stuff to rummage through, and i try and do the same when i can, in return

i'm sure she wont be offended at all

If her existing coat wasn't inadequate you wouldn't be so concerned about offering yours, so try to put that out of your mind. People often offer clothes to me and visa versa, I've never worried about the person being offended mostly because I know that the issue isn't money, it's about waste.

that's a good point scanner.
if I didn't think she needed it I wouldn't worry about offering it.

thanks for all responses.

Message withdrawn

slight deviation, but do you think if I posted a message, any one would be interested in having DS's (not too worn) hand me downs on a regular basis? We don't have any friends with younger children and I generally just give them to charity - just occurred to me that if there was someone on here with a DS a year younger, i could post off the "reasonable condition" ones on a regular basis. Or would suggesting that also be patronising / sort of offensive in some kind of way?

I know of a woman who collects clothes for an orphanage in South Africa - have often posted her stuff that my dcs have outgrown (don't know her personally but she made an appeal on MN a couple of years ago...)

Message withdrawn

well it all went very smoothly
she said yes straight away, no embarrassment on either side.

milliec what kind of lowlife would steal a pram out of a car? sorry this happened to you.

milliec - will do - thanks for link