davenkel

Hello everyone,

My wife and I are at wits end with our daughter. She is 5, and for the past 3 months or so she has been giving us a really difficult time getting dressed. It was first the socks, then the shoes, then it had to be dresses, then it had to be shorts and tee shirts, then nothing was what she wanted to wear, and today she began whining about which panties she wanted to wear. This is horrible. She is a very intelligent girl, fun, very well behaved other than the issue with getting dressed. She is absolutely beautiful, and hears it from everyone she meets, and even with all the love and support she receives from us, she seems to have a self esteem problem with her looks. She has remarked to me about 5 times that she doesn't feel pretty, and I assure her she is pretty. She gets this look on her face when she has told me that she does not feel pretty, and it is the same look I see when we are struggling to get her dressed. So I am not sure if the two are linked. We let her pick out some of her own clothes at the stores, and then she won't wear them.

Today is what prompted me to share this and ask for some help from folks here. Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated.

Kaytee

I don't have an older child, mine is still a toddler, but just from experience with kids in my family I can say the two might be related. Of course this is my own opinion but kids are sponges as you know with a 5 year old. I would step back and listen to what is going on around her. Like does your wife ever make comments about herself, "I shouldn't eat this cookie it might make me fat, this dress makes me look weird, " little things like that can be soaked up in children. Maybe not even your wife, could be other kids she goes to school with that are hearing these comments then saying them and your dd picks it up.
Obviously this is just my opinion since I have no actual BTDT experience with this. I have heard that complimenting others around your child can also help or compliment yourself kind of thing. "Wow my hair looks pretty good today doesn't it?" To your dd.
Good luck hopefully others who have kids in this age group will come give some advise for you

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tater03

I can tell you that I have a five year old son that goes to preschool and he started every morning about his hair not being just right. If it was sticking up or not just right he would have a fit in school. Come to find out a child in his preschool was teasing him because his hair is a strawberry blonde and they would call him redhead and this particulair child was teasing him because his hair was sticking up one day.
I found this out by watching this child one day do this and it clicked. Could something like that be happening with your daughter and her friends? Just a thought.
He has finally gotten over it just be constant reassrance that his hair is fine and that this child doesn't know what he is talking about.