My Child Refuses to Get Dressed!

“Me do it! Me do it!”

If you have a toddler or pre-schooler, you will no doubt be familiar with their words of insistence that they MUST do something on their own.  This might be putting on their shoes, getting dressed or brushing their teeth.  These little people can be absolutely adamant that THEY need to do whatever it is for themselves, BY THEMSELVES!

This strong need to exert some independence and control over what they are doing is just a normal part of the toddler/preschooler's development.  You can facilitate this by taking some time to teach them some of the basics - how to spot which shoe goes on which foot, start a zip fastener for them to finish, or show them how much toothpaste is appropriate.  But really, these little guys will learn through experience.  That’s their job right now.  Your job is to allow as much time as possible and muster as much patience as you can.

But MY child REFUSES to get dressed!

But what if, like many parents, you find that some mornings your child just absolutely REFUSES to get dressed?  This is not a case of them needing to do it on their own.  This is just them putting their foot down and making it clear that it’s not going to happen!

Power struggles over getting dressed in the morning are very common in young children around 2-6 years old.  These can often result in the child having a full-blown tantrum or explosion - kicking, screaming, biting, hitting. 

When these moments hit, it’s tricky to know how best to handle them or what to do.  What often compounds the stress in these situations is that you’re trying to get everyone out the door to be where they need to be on time.  There’s that added pressure of time, which can make us behave in ways that we later question or are just plain inefficient.

Proactive Prevention Strategies

In many parenting situations, the most effective and long-lasting approaches involve proactive prevention.  As in, taking steps to try to avoid these power struggles over getting dressed happening in the first place.  Here are some suggestions for some proactive prevention strategies:

Prep ahead of time

If you anticipate that your child will struggle to get dressed in the morning, doing some preparation in advance often helps relieve the stress. 

If your child is in a good mood the evening prior, pick out their clothes then and lay them out ready for the morning. If your child is particular about what they wear, let them choose their own clothes depending on the forecast and planned activities for the day ahead.  Or, if that’s too overwhelming for them either because of too much choice or they might make choices you disagree with (e.g. shorts in summer), give them a choice out of 2 items.  For example - do you want to wear the blue shirt or red one?  Green socks or stripes ones.  Etc. 

The more involvement your child has in the process of selecting their clothes the better so you can be sure they are “happy” with the clothes the next day.  You’re eliminating the possibility it is the clothes that they are protesting against when refusing to get dressed.

If your child is consistently refusing to get dressed in the morning and it has become a major issue in your home, then you might try letting them sleep in their clothes.  This would be a temporary solution to get you over the immediate power struggles and until you can work on other pro-active strategies to eliminate the need to sleep in their clothes.  It won’t last forever but can help short-term.

Plan extra time

If you know your child has issues getting dressed in the morning, then plan extra time into your morning schedule to allow for this.  That might mean that you need to wake up earlier and get ready first before you then help your child get dressed. 

It also might involve you giving them a pre-warning that it will be time to get dressed soon (say, 5 minutes prior).  This is helpful if your child tends to get engrossed in playing or another activity and struggles to disengage when it’s time to get dressed.  When it’s time for them to get dressed, make sure that you go to them, engage in what they are doing and then let them know what they need to do.  Stay with them until they take action.  Do your best to avoid shouting instructions from across the room or from another room - you might have experienced that children generally don’t listen to us when we do this!

Make it fun / into a game

Let’s face it, it’s quite nice to lounge around in pajamas!  Sometimes it’s just not very fun to get dressed and get ready for the day - especially if you’re busy doing something fun like playing with your favorite toys or looking at your picture books.  If this is your child, then try to make getting dressed fun for them. 

Children love games and if you can find a way to make daily activities fun, they will engage more readily and “play along”.  You could put a kitchen timer on and see if everyone can get dressed before it rings, or you could even offer a small reward for getting dressed quickly - “when you get dressed quickly, then I have time to read you a story before we leave.”

Let go of your fear projections

If your child refusing to get dressed really triggers you and makes you see red, take a quiet moment to reflect and question what it is about the situation that gets you so upset.  It is natural for this situation to be frustrating, but if you find yourself shouting, threatening your child, or punishing them for refusing to get dressed and you find yourself emotionally wound up, it’s worth taking a closer look at your inner thoughts and fears that are probably compounding your reaction to the situation. 

For example, deep down you might feel like a failure as a parent because your child isn’t listening to you or maybe you feel you’re the only person who has trouble getting their child dressed in the morning.  You might feel that they will never get dressed without you cajoling them to do so, and surely BY NOW they should be able to do so.  You might be afraid that there will be repercussions at work for you for constantly being a little late because of this situation. 

Whatever your inner thoughts and deep-rooted fears may be, it helps to bring them to light and understand them in order to better understand your reactions.  If you can understand your reactions, you will be in a better position to moderate them better in the future.

Tantrum Taming Strategies

And if you’ve done all that and your child still explodes over getting dressed? 

What’s important to understand is that when your child hits that full-blown tantrum stage, their emotional brain has taken over and their logical brain is hibernating.  So addressing your child on a rational or logical level will not get you anywhere.  Instead, you need to meet them on their emotional level and help them learn to manage those big feelings they are having. 

In the moment, you can try the following:

Stay Calm & Present

If you need to, take a deep breath or use another calming technique to help your own brain realise that this is not an emergency situation.  You need to stay calm in order to best help your child through this moment.

Don’t ignore your child or their tantrum or banish them to another room.  Instead, stay present with them to let them know that they are not alone and you are not withdrawing your love because of their uncontrollable behavior.  Your child is having real, big and likely overwhelming emotions and it’s important you stay with them so that you can provide the reassurance they need.  You don’t want to teach them to ignore or suppress their feelings.  They need to know that you love them unconditionally and that you will help them manage those big feelings.

As parents, it’s often really tough for us to watch our children have these big emotions - instinctively we want to get rid of them or fix them!  Big emotions are totally natural for all of us to have.  Little children might have bigger reactions to those big emotions than us adults, but they are still big emotions behind those reactions.  If you can meet your child on that emotional level and address the emotions they are having, you will help them get through their tantrum faster.

Connect / Empathise

So what might some of those emotions be? 

It could be that your child really enjoys being at home and with you, so getting dressed is the signal and reminder that they’re about to leave this comfortable place or be separated from you.  It may be that they have some anxiety about going to pre-school and so don’t want to get dressed to go.  It might just be that they are super happy doing whatever they are doing and transitioning to doing anything else is upsetting. 

Maybe you used to get them dressed but now expect them to do it on their own and they are mourning that loss of attention.  Maybe they were really hoping they could wear their dressing up clothes and you’re offering them plain clothes instead. 

There are lots of possible thoughts and feelings that your child might be having that leads them to refuse to get dressed and having a tantrum.  The more that you can guess what they might be, the more you will be able to connect with your child and empathise with their struggles.

“I can see that you really don’t want to get dressed right now.”  “You were hoping that you could play with your train set a little bit longer and you’re sad you have to stop playing.”

If you can observe your child and reflect back to them your observations and guesses about what they might be going through, that will validate their feelings and let them know that you understand.  Offering empathy for their struggle can go a long way to helping them feel heard and therefore allowing those big feelings to dissipate.

Problem Solve only when calm

Once you have connected with your child and let them experience their big feelings, they will naturally get to a point where they will calm down.  It’s only at that point that you can begin to offer solutions or problem solve because their thinking brain is coming out of hibernation. 

And yes, this can take a bit of time to do, so again, if you anticipate your child having a tantrum, try to allow more time in your schedule so that you can be present, reconnect and empathize. 

Yes, there will be days where you just don’t have this time and you have to get out the door - on those days, help your child as much as you can in the moment to do what needs to be done and make time later in the day to revisit the situation and problem solve some solutions together.