If your son is still wearing sweats every day, all day, you might want to reconsider. The reason is that when your guy looks more mature, they will be treated differently. They will be spoken to more, and listened to with a different lens. They will be invited to participate in ways they need, even assumed to want to participate without any additional cues. This is true even with the adults that know them well. That love them like you do.
Why?
Appearance shouldn’t be judged!
Our unconscious biases aren’t that easy for us to overcome. Think about it. When you see a disheveled elderly person, your mind automatically assumes things about their abilities. Might be true. Could be completely false. The same person, dressed to the nines, will be thought of entirely differently. Again, might be true or false. You can disagree about this, or feel that it is unfair, but the research is solid. Human beings, including children, make unconscious assumptions about appearance that affect their interactions. It doesn’t make us monsters. Your job as a parent is to support your child, to get them the best environment to thrive. My job as an occupational therapist is to make guys with special needs as skilled in managing clothing with fasteners as they can be. To give them skills, practice, and adaptations when needed.
We let our special needs boys wear sweats or shorts with elastic waistbands well into middle school. When they need to dress up for an event, we do the zipping, or we buy them a new pair of sweats. The day will come when there are few jeans with elastic in the back that come in their size.
We are selling these guys short.
They are often able to fasten a pair of well-fitting pants when they have the opportunity to learn, and the right clothing to wear. Clothing that makes this skill easier for them. Practice that doesn’t overwhelm them, that gives them the chance to succeed.
- Don’t put them in skinny jeans. Kids who are learning need roomier clothing.
- Don’t put them in jeans that are too stiff. Going from soft stretchy fabric to stiff denim is like wearing Spanx to work every day. Pre-washed denim is a lot kinder to make that transition.
- Pick fasteners that aren’t too small or too stiff. Snaps are often harder to manipulate than buttons. Large hooks on slacks can be easier than the buttons on jeans.
- You can loosen the openings on buttons a little without compromising the stability of the closure. You can also grease the fabric a bit to make it slide over the button.
- Start by doing most of the work but narrating what you are doing with verbs in your sentences. Don’t let them look away or watch a screen. They won’t learn anything that way.
- Have them use a wearing schedule. If your kid wore orthotics when they were little, you know the drill. Short periods with little activity that builds to longer periods of wear.
- Make sure they empty their bladder first when you are starting out. And make sure they can find you if they need help unfastening their pants to pee. Nothing tanks learning like wetting themselves too often. They need to know you are going to help them out and want this to succeed.
- Take photos of them and share them with people they love. They might want to pose and read the texted responses.
