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Don’t you miss the Good Ol’ Days when returning to school was easy? It merely required buying a pair of brown shoes, getting measured for a uniform, or taking a trip to the Hair Cuttery. Those days are very much over. In a world of designer fashion for infants, lingerie ads for children, and drug and alcohol promotion on clothing for teens finding appropriate pieces for your child may become much more than just back to school shopping. Buying clothes for your children may open a Pandora’s Box of uncomfortable questions and conversations. So if you are a parent trapped in the back-to-school-blitz, remain calm and know that even the before-school shopping can be a learning opportunity for your child.
Rule 1: Remember, You Are The Parent
I have seen many parent-child pairings while I was a high school teacher, middle school counselor, and psychologist. Through these experiences, I have been always struck by parents’ fear to parent. Parenting often requires disappointing your child, whether it be with a curfew, a “no,” or a consequence. Often due to guilt surrounding situational stressors, such as divorce, financial strain, or lack of availability, parents compensate by giving in to their children when they normally would not do so. Your child may want a shirt that you cannot afford, but due to your guilt about your financial situation you buy with your credit card and accrue more debt. Loving your child does not mean always giving in or winning the parent popularity contest. Children require boundaries, rules, and consequences to feel secure, to feel that you will be in charge during times of crisis, and to learn lessons to navigate the real world. This is the time to teach them what is right, what is wrong, and why.
Rule 2: Use the Opportunity to Go There
As you may have already learned the hard way, shopping for back to school is so much more than picking out items to buy. Difficult topics such as sexuality, body image, finance, bullying, etc. can rear their ugly heads. Often parents want to talk to their children about these topics but are not sure just how to begin the conversation…well here is the open door. After a shopping trip, sit down with your child and process all of the issues that surfaced during your time together. If you make sure you are offering age-appropriate information, allowing your child to ask and answer questions, and remembering how you felt when you were a child discussing these topics, this can only be a positive exercise for both of you.
Rule 3: Identity Formation
We learn who we are through exploration. By trying on different hats, we figure out which one feels right, and we stick with it. During our lives we reexamine our choices and may change the hat. When you shop with your child for school, glimmers of self-exploration and formation are present. Watching your children choose color, style, outfits, likes, and dislikes, are all aspects of the creative process that shows you pieces of who they are.
As we never really know who we are in isolation, the deepest discoveries of the self are through interactions with others. When your children are picking out items do they talk about what “everyone else wears” or “not wanting to be the only one who…”? Do they struggle with what they want versus what their peers want from them? Do they reject an item because they don’t want to look like everyone else or don’t want to appear that they care, only indicating that they actually do? These are all golden opportunities to examine the self with your child. You can talk about your own experiences of finding out who you were when you were younger, your dealings with peer rejection, your desire to stand out, your need to fit in, or your struggle to just make sense of the process. This is the time when discussing more serious issues surrounding peer pressure such as sexual behavior, drug and alcohol use, cheating, etc. will help them strengthen their resolve in what they want for their own lives.
Have you taken your child back-to-school-shopping? Have any difficult situations arisen? How did you handle them? Do you have any advice for other readers? Dr. B wants to know.... Class is in session!
