Summer has arrived, and with it, for most of us, a holiday. No school. No work, at least for a while. More time to spare. But daily life goes on. Getting up, getting dressed, eating, and for mothers, overseeing it all and preparing meals.
The good weather helps. Some of us are lucky enough to live in a bathing suit and eat outdoors. Why not use this time to teach your child—or at least to start teaching, or to improve, depending on what he or she can already do—to undress and dress without help?
This is a basic step toward independence. It makes the child happier too, because it lets him succeed at something. Disabled or not, we all need a taste of personal success.
And for the mother: making a child more independent lightens her load and makes family life easier for everyone.
- Read also: Teaching Children with Disabilities to Eat Together and Independently
We felt it important not only to encourage this genuinely valuable educational effort, but to offer some practical advice as well.
Here, then, are some points to keep in mind.
1. Dress and undress your child at the same time each day, so that routine becomes his ally. This doesn't mean the exact same hour on the clock (8 a.m. sharp, for instance)—that can be hard during holidays. It means doing it at the same point in the day, always before or always after breakfast or lunch, not sometimes before and sometimes after. Routine and order matter tremendously for a handicapped child.
2. Undressing is easier than dressing. Teach him to undress himself first.
3. Choose simple, comfortable clothes to make the job easier.
Summer clothing is naturally easier to handle than winter clothing, and there's less of it.
You can make it even simpler by adapting the clothes themselves. Larger buttons are easier to undo; loose-fitting clothes go on and come off more easily than tight ones; some buttons can be replaced with adhesive strips.
4. Before teaching something new, always consider what your child can already do—so you don't ask him to do something beyond his abilities. If he doesn't have the hand coordination to hold an object between his fingers, for instance, don't ask him to unbutton his shirt.
5. What position should your child take while learning to dress and undress? It depends. Often sitting or standing works best. But some children with specific physical disabilities—spastic children, for example—may succeed only lying on their back. The adult helping should stand behind the child rather than in front.
6. Always encourage the child to hand you the clothes he has removed. This is better than dropping them on a chair or the floor. It strengthens his sense of cooperation and gives you another chance to make or keep contact with him.
7. When your child is practicing dressing, lay out his clothes in the order he will put them on. This will be a great help to him.
8. Always allow plenty of time for these exercises. Rushing the child only confuses him further. This is why, once school starts and we're pressed for time, we dress him ourselves.
9. Remember that what seems simple to us is actually a complex series of movements. Many children can learn to do it only if we break those movements down into small steps, teaching one step at a time.
For example, taking off pants involves:
- opening the belt or zipper
- unbuttoning the top button and hook
- grasping the top of the pants with both hands on either side
- pushing the pants down to the feet
- pulling one leg out
- pulling the other leg out
But when teaching, always start with the last step. The adult does movements a, b, c, d, and e, while the child learns to do f—the final gesture. In the example above, the child need only pull the second leg out of the pants or hand them to the adult. Once he has mastered that, the adult stops at step d, and the child does steps e and f on his own. And so on, backward through the sequence.
Don't get discouraged. Remember that a handicapped child often needs to repeat the same gesture many times before it sticks.
During this learning period, he also needs to master the concepts of:
- which garment goes on which part of the body
- top and bottom
- front and back
- right side and wrong side
- left and right, especially for shoes
These are fundamental points for young children or those with serious disabilities. But don't forget that independence involves many daily actions—from dressing all the way to more complex tasks like shaving, applying makeup, or caring for clothes.
It's not enough just to be able to dress yourself. A person needs to make sure his clothes are completely in order, to look in the mirror, to keep his hair neat, and so on.
Learning to dress with a certain elegance—especially for adolescents and adults—is part of overall well-being and gives real independence.
Young people must learn to choose their own clothes, but they also need guidance to avoid obvious mistakes: garish patterns, clothes too tight, colors too vivid—things that would only hinder the person's integration into society.
For everyone, simple and practical clothes work best. Today's fashion, with its abundance of jeans, makes choosing easier.
When it comes to hair, choose a style that suits the face. But a simple, neat hairstyle will always be more becoming than a complicated one that's hard to keep tidy.
Perhaps these simple suggestions will seem obvious to many mothers who have figured all this out for themselves. But we hope they may be helpful to someone. And we would be pleased if those of you who have had these experiences—or others quite different—would share your suggestions and observations with the same spirit of mutual help and shared progress that this magazine hopes to pass on, in small matters and large.
Nicole Schultes, 1977
P.S. Many of the ideas in this article were drawn from the teachings of David Byrne, an English educator.