Building independence with dressing skills
When children experience challenges with getting themselves dressed, this may be due to a number of factors, including poor balance and challenges with using both hands together and fine motor strength, grip and coordination. This can be further compounded by challenges with visual processing, which can lead to clothes being put on inside out or back to front.
The impact of these challenges can be far reaching and impactful for the whole family. Your child may refuse to try, become overwhelmed by the prospect of getting dressed or develop a learned helplessness and wait to be helped each day. This may over time impact on their self esteem.
Tension may be created by the additional time needed on a busy school day/work morning to support your child, alongside misunderstandings of the situation that can cause tension between parents and siblings and accusations of “laziness”.
As Occupational Therapists, we can observe, discuss and assess which are the elements that are the ‘flashpoints’ for your child and then problem solve in a practical way around these.
Here are just a few ‘helpful hints’ that might be a good place to start:
When developing dressing skills, choose times of the day/week for practice that are not time limited. Weekend mornings are ideal as your child (and you) may feel fresher and have more patience with each other.
Work on one element of dressing at a time and build on successes.
Putting on socks: practice using much larger socks than your child wears. Ask your child to sit on the floor with their back against their bed or the wall (for support). Use the ‘thumbs up, thumbs in’ approach, e.g. thumbs up with both hands, then place both thumbs into the top of the socks to grip and pull. Use socks that have coloured toes and heel sections. This provides an additional visual cue about the correct position. Seamless socks may feel more comfortable for those with sensitive feet.
The ‘thumbs up thumbs in’ technique can also be used for putting pants and bottoms on and off.
Use a mirror to help your child to see their top button rather than just feel it.
To help your child to put their shoes on the correct foot, get a large sticker and cut it in half. Place half of the sticker in each of the shoes so that it makes the picture correctly when the shoes are placed next to each other:
Ready made versions of these are available on Amazon. You might prefer to draw half a smiley face in each shoe using a permanent marker.
Visual checklists using photos of your child in the various stages of dressing, e.g. for school days when the clothes are the same each day, may help them to stay on track and cue them into the next step by referring to the chart.
For putting on tops, ask your child to sit on a chair / their bed and to lay their top on their lap. Help them to notice where the label is so they know they have started the task with everything in the right place. Using a t-shirt with a design on the front is helpful as this needs to be face down at the start. If you can see it, turn it over.
Learning dressing skills will require lots of opportunities to practice and lots of patience from everyone. There are many ways in which an Occupational Therapist can support this process, so get in touch with us if you’d like any support.
Rachel White
Children’s Occupational Therapist