Parent Tips to Support Dressing Skills in Young Children

As parents and caregivers, we know that when children develop independence in dressing skills, part of our daily caregiving job gets a lot easier! One of the greatest joys of parenting is watching our kids become successful with self-care tasks. Celebrating these milestones and basking in the newfound independence and self-confidence of our young children are moments of joy on the parenting journey. Opportunities to support a child's dressing skills development abound throughout the day, including the morning and evening dressing routines of home to school-based dressing tasks such as donning and doffing jackets, hats, gloves, sneakers, socks and more.

The time of day in which your child needs to change their clothes is a great time to use a method called backward chaining.  In short, the adult initiates & completes the majority of a task but then leaves the last part available for the child to do.  In essence, it gives the child a sense of completion & ACCOMPLISHMENT, and leaves room available for them to learn the prior steps over time to achieve the end result. As parents or caregivers, it is important to make your caregiving job the easiest it can be in order to meet with success. Try to support the development of your child's dressing skills during YOUR easiest time of day. Set yourself and your child up for success.

For most families, there are times of the day that are more hectic and busy than others. To support independent dressing skills in kids, try to choose one time each day that is easiest for you, because this will allow you to be fully present for your child and allow for practice and relationship-building as well. Sometimes, morning routines with the demands for eating breakfast, packing lunches, and getting out the door for work and school can be too much. During these times, you may need to assist your child more in the name of quickness and the overall demands of the morning. When you are ready to work on dressing skills, set a time that is more relaxed, with less demands afterward. Bedtime routines might be a great place to start, because there is no pressure to get everyone out the door in a rush!

Things to Consider to Support Your Child's Dressing Skills:

1. Start with bedtime routines to teach dressing skills instead of morning routines. Bedtime routines provide a more relaxed time, with less demands than morning routines.

2. Skills learned during one daily routine will carry over into the other times of day that a child will need to use the same skills.

3. Use backward-chaining for step by step success. You do the first parts of a dressing task, then let your child do the last step to feel success. Each day, you can build their challenge by allowing them to complete more and more parts of the task towards completion.

4. Model the task yourself for your child, or engage in it with them. Showing your child how to organize themselves and complete dressing tasks in order can be the first step towards success as they try to imitate you.

5. Use a full-length mirror for learning and visual feedback.

6. Start with removing clothes first: Removing clothes is usually easier for kids than putting them on. Additionally, it helps kids build strength, coordination, and body awareness skills that will improve their motor skills and sensory systems. Encourage your child to remove pants, shirts, socks and shoes, then help them more with putting clothes on.

7. Encourage your child's practice to use fasteners on clothing. Bigger is easier than smaller! Engage your child in play using toys or clothing items with large-sized zippers, buttons, and snaps. Playing with these types of items enhances their knowledge of how these things work, as well as their fine motor skills. Eventually, they will be able to apply these skills to their own clothes.

8. Engagement with everyday items gives kids consistent, real-life practice and develops their hand skills. This supports their hand use in other activities & occupations that support school readiness- such as using scissors and holding writing implements.

9. Allow opportunities to practice & play with zippers & buttons on toys, dolls, or old clothes.

10. Last but never least- celebrate success! Any time your child engages in dressing skills with you, or completes a new level of a task, celebrate that success and make them feel good. Your support and your happiness towards their accomplishment goes a long way in motivating them to do it again and also to feel your positive energy as a parent. This builds your relationship with your child and also builds your child's self-esteem and concept of self-agency (being able to do things on their own and make their own choices). This confidence will pour over into other areas of life for your child!