Do you tell child what to wear?

[real13]

I was talking to one of the Mums at school recently.
She was having issues with her Daughter (5) because she wouldn’t wear the clothes that she wanted her to.

Both my children picked their own outfits from a young age (maybe 3 ish). I would then buy clothes based on what they liked. Eldest loved sporty clothes & youngest would only wear fluffy tops, so I just made sure I bought those.
It’s never crossed my mind to try and make them wear clothes they didn’t want to wear.

I kind of said pick your battles, and how I didn’t think it mattered if kids picked their own clothes etc, but she got a bit defensive and said if her kid won’t even listen to her with regards to wearing outfits, then she’s not going to listen to her about anything else. She said she tries to put her off certain clothes by saying yuck when she tries to pick them etc.

Personally, I find it odd. I don’t understand the issue with a kid wanting to pick their own outfit?

I am a bit ‘soft’ perhaps as a parent, so maybe I’m the odd one. Did you pick your own children’s outfits at that age?

DD is 4 and I'll try and gently steer if we're going out for lunch/party or something but day to day she wears what she wants.

I've learnt through trial and error what she likes...it's not how I'd love to dress her but she's a human not a doll! So now I buy what I think she'll like rather than what I orefer

I chose all DD’s clothes for a long time and never had any issues with that in the main, and she was at a non-uniform primary but I still got out what she was going to wear for most of her time there.

My eldest is only four so quite young yet, I expect it’ll all change but he doesn’t care at all what he wears. Like he has favourite tops, lightning McQueen and grassmen for example, a definite preference for shorts over trousers of any kind and loves his wellies over any and all other shoes, but ultimately I have final say. Do I need to crack down often? No, but happily he listens when I do. He’s certainly not got any interest at all in shopping, online or physical, so I choose everything anyway, so he can’t go too wrong 😉

I think I used to get side eyed a fair bit in the park, as whilst ds was fairly oblivious to what he wore & would just grab any old tshirt, joggers, off we go, his younger sisters were a different story.

I had a mate with a slightly older dd & a serious Monsoon habit. Lots & lots of flowy fancy frocks got passed down.

Given by that time actual parties were mostly Lazerquest etc & required sporty wear, I just shrugged & let the dds freely go at the frocks at weekends. Which meant I had two tiny Stevie Nicks tributes in tow a lot of the time...

Dd1 now lives in jeans & regards photos from that phase with horror, whereas dd2 is a fairly dramatic dresser with gothic tendencies, so clearly no predictor of future tastes.