How to manage 13 Yr old daughter tantrums over clothes.

[SURREYmum2025]

I'm at a bit of an inpasse with my 14 year old daughter. She's obsessed with the way clothes look on her. Unfortunately she's at a school that has no uniform so every single day is a battle field.

She picks clothes online that she likes I order these she tries these on and then won't wear the clothes. By the time this happens the return date has passed and then she has a tanrum when I've sold it on Vinted etc as monts later she may want it. We go to stores and she tries on everything and then I will buy it for her just so I know she has something to wear. Again she won't wear it. Every single day is a battle and to be frank I'm sick to the teeth of it.

We are late every single day for everything.
Any advice??

My 13yo daughter is ND and has very low self esteem. what I find with her is that her clothes / makeup / hair are her armour against the world. If she is feeling stressed or anxious then clothes that are usually fine are no good - she has to feel comfortable, hair and makeup have to be perfect. A good day she’s less worried.

Give her a set budget and she’ll soon only buy stuff she wants to wear and buy 5 tops from shein rather than 1 from Zara

Give her a clothing allowance, make her responsible for what she buys and returning things in time or selling them on. She needs to appreciate the value of clothing and what you do for her.

This isn’t about clothes-this is about self-esteem, emotional regulation, boundaries, getting you to do what she thinks she wants you to do. You need to observe patterns of behaviour a bit more and develop a better understanding of what is going on here.

Is she neurodivergent?

Tell her you’re going to move her to a school that does uniforms if she doesn’t cut the crap.

definitely sounds like self-esteem problems. I’d try getting her to pick full outfits (including jewellery and shoes) out the night before school so at least you don’t have the battle in the morning

Sounds like she's learnt that a tantrum gets her new stuff whether she needs them or not. She needs to realise you can't afford to waste money for her not to wear stuff after she's specifically asked for it. Nothing comes free in life and her wasting stuff like that costs you money that could be better spent elsewhere on stuff that benefits the whole family. Teach her that you don't have endless funds to keep buying her stuff just for it to sit there unused

Another vote for is she neurodivergent here. Both my daughters - aged 8 and 15 - have sensory issues with clothes, and both struggle with how they are percieved by others. This became much more pronouced for my elder daughter at your daughters age. Too tight, too loose, too scratchy, too tickley - and of course labels are the devil to them, particularly at the neckline. For my youngest, even getting in a pickle putting a garment on can be enough for her to reject that garment forever. While school uniform takes away the pressure of choos8ng clothes for my eldest, finding clothes which are soft enough for both the girls to bear which fit with uniform expectations is very challenging. My youngest has reasonable adjustments allowing her to wear flared leggings and plain tshirts rather than the standard uniform. I have no idea how she will ever cope with uniform expectations in secondary - I can't imagine her ever managing with a blazer or tie. Neither of my girls are choosing this - they are both autistic.

My eldest found the Netflix documentary "The Mind, Explained: Teenage Brain" really helpful (as I suspect all teenagers would, ND or not), and as a family we all found the Autistic Girls Network information on autistic presentation in females an eye opener, as girls can present very differently to boys.

The only thing which has really helped my girls on the clothes side of things is the same strategy we have had to apply in supporting them more generally: help them to express their experience, truly listen to and believe them and help them find ways of living in the world which suit them rather than fit in with what they think others expect. My girls feeling heard has helped them to feel calmer and more able to express themselves appropriately, rather than through what I once perceived to be tantrumming behaviour (but I now know to be a sign of emotional dysregulatation linked to their sensory differences). Coercion through traditional parenting methods usually makes things far worse for us - a trusting bond has been far more productive.

Good luck x

https://autisticgirlsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Keeping-it-all-inside.pdf

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15978214/

I gave my dds an allowance at that age and let them get on with it. They soon were happy to wear HandM and primark, having previously been into Jack Wills (cool at the time).

My clothes at school were scruffy and untrendy and I had very few of them , there must be kids like that still at her school??

Maybe she needs a reality check.

I think the best thing to do here is to stop buying her new clothes because this sounds like a bit of a vicious cycle where she is always getting what she wants and she's the one in control.

It might also be a good idea to get to the root cause of these tantrums, it sounds to me like it could be low self-esteem and her wanting to look 'perfect'.

I really recommend this article (it's written by these experts who created a health & wellbeing app for teen girls called we are luna, but they also write articles for parents too): https://weareluna.app/parents/guides/mental-health-and-wellbeing/signs-of-low-self-esteem/

Hope that helps - it helped me with my DD (14)

Stop getting involved she's quite capable of picking her clothes and getting dressed in the morning. She knows what time she needs to leave for school so she's either ready or goes in her pyjamas

Definitely agree, and great share on the article, will give this a read as will help with my 13 y/o – thank you!