Previously, I stressed that it is important that your child can get their clothes back in place after going to the bathroom. But the bigger picture is that your child needs to learn to get dressed all by themselves. I looked at many different sources to see what they think is the age at children should be able to dress themselves. Most said by the age of 5 or 6. The CDC says children should be able to dress themselves and tie their shoes by “middle childhood,” which they define as 6 to 8 years of age.
Getting dressed involves three major skills your child must master to dress themselves:
- Gross Motor skills: Lifting arms and legs to put the clothes on and to take them off.
- Fine Motor skills: Using fingers to button, zip, snap or tie.
- Cognitive: Understanding the correct order of things to put on and the correct orientation for each.
There is way too much around getting dressed to cover in a single post. So instead of me trying to explain it all, here are some links to articles that are very well written:
Teaching your child how to get dressed (Australian Parenting Website)
Dressing Myself (NHS UK)
How to Teach Your Kid to Use a Zipper (WikiHow)
