Teaching Kids Dressing Skills: Time For Them To do It Themselves

Teaching kids to dress themselves independently is one important skill to teach them, around the time they start going to school. If you think teaching this particular skill is only to put some burden off your shoulders, well, it is not just that. Not only does it help the child to become self-reliant, and boosts his confidence; it also contributes in the development of their motor and other cognitive skills, and also in language development.

So, while there comes a time when children themselves start trying to dress them themselves, however, a few may not show any interest and continue depending on you. For parents, it does become necessary to note and observe all such little things, and take up actions in order to ensure their child does not lag behind in acquiring any of those skills which are appropriate to his age.

Given below are a few easy tips in order to help your kid learn the basic dressing skills, which s/he must have mastered by the end of her/his fourth birthday:

Art of zipping

Teach them the art of zipping their mouths. Well, not really. While, this too could be a good life skill, but what we are focusing in this post is the art of zipping up the clothes.So start by first teaching them unzip, as it is comparatively an easier task. You can play a game of zipping up a jacket and letting the child unzip it, for practice. Then, in some time reverse the pattern.

Putting on the pants

This one can be tricky. Putting on pants and shorts require a lot of hand-eye co-ordination as well as balancing act. You have to teach the child to put in one leg at a time in the leg holes, while holding them from the waist. They may fumble and stumble in their initial attempts, but keep the practice on.

Putting on a top

The front closed t-shirts, tops are slightly more complex for the toddlers to get their head and heads through them properly, so start with the front open top-wear like jackets and cardigans. Place the jacket on the floor upside down. Now ask the child to carefully slide through the sleeves his/her arms and raise them towards the sky, to have the jacket pulled over the head. A bit of pulling down and adjusting, and there you go.

Slipping in the shoes

Velcro strap shoes, or ballerinas, or slippers are the best one to start with. While getting their feet into slippers is quite easy, (probably, your child already does so, even if the slippers are your and too big for her feet) but slipping into shoes is tab bit complex. Show them how you do it, for them to copy. Pick shoes that are soft and stretchable.Show them how the feet have to be slid in and to pull the shoe upwards to slid in the heel.Shoes with laces can be avoided around this time.

Also Read: 5 yellow summer dresses your little girl must have in her Wardrobe

Buttoning Up

To teach your toddler to zip up her hoodie wouldn’t be so difficult as to teach them to button up a cardigan. You need to be patient and give your child ample of time to perfect this skill. First of all show them how to grasp a button and pull it through the hole on the fabric at the other side. Then, teach them the skill of slightly stretching the hole to get the button through. After your child has learnt this, it is time to help them button up in sequence, like the lower most button has to be pulled through the corresponding hole on the other side, and moving further up in the same manner.Cut some slack for them for this last part is not easy to master for a four year old.