I'm happy to say she is much better at wearing shoes now. No more going 3 months barefoot. She still has many pairs and goes through many pairs and still often takes her shoes off at school.
Funnily enough I currently have a 1 1/2 year old who loves to put shoes on and brings me shoes a million times a day wanting me to put them on her. Most are too small and she gets angry if I don't help her. Its driving me insane (I've had to hide most of her shoes) but even then she swaps shoes 50 times a day. This post made me laugh that I was once upon a time upset at a daughter of mine who wouldnt wear shoes... mwah ha hahah... kids...
“I am as tough as a pig in winter!” My 4 year old daughters defiant reply to my pleading of her wearing clothes. I looked at her dumbfounded. “Where did you learn that?” I asked. “From you” it seemed almost accusing. She was still wearing summer clothes in winter and I wanted her to wear more and a pair of shoes when we went to a restaurant that night.
From those of you who know Kipper we had been reading the book earlier in the week. All the other animals had clothes on, but not the pig. She had asked why and I said he must be tough. Oh how our words come back to haunt us!
This was just another excuse in the pile I have already heard.
She wont wear shoes because they are too…. Tight, ichy, scratchy, sweaty, rub, cause blisters, small, big, the soles are too hard and don't bend and the list goes on. I think at one time she actually went a month or more without wearing shoes… I had just given up.
She has the same excuses for most clothes, especially shirts. We can have no frills, bows poke your back, zips hurt, patches or embroidered pictures are itchy on the inside, particular fabrics at scratchy and it can't be too tight or she can't breathe – goodbye to collars and turtle necks in winter. Pants are too tight, too hot, jeans are a definate NO NO as the zip sticks in your stomach. So all year around she wears basic cotton t shirts and skirts, but usually op shop cotton mu mu ugly dresses. Not much imagination in that wardrobe.
When you have a child who wont conform to the ‘norm’ even in the mild area of ‘clothes wearing’ it can be embarrassing for the parent. The comments on walking her older sister to school with no shoes on in the inner city area which we live – oh my! NO shoes in the rain! Oh dear. Watch out for broken glass - it is so dangerous you know! No shoes during (some of) winter – What type of parent are you? Basically one that has given up after a year of fighting every where we have to go.
There are handme down shoes from siblings, cousins, friends that are lovingly worn or admired for a day or two. There was special shoe shopping with mummy with promises of I will wear these – only to be thrown to the side a couple of weeks later. Ballet shoes, sandals, joggers, thongs, crocs, the list goes on and the pile of shoes in her room grows.
The discarded thrown aside shoe pile is almost as big as the clothes I don’t wear pile.
The thing I find most amusing is that all this ‘shoe syndrome’ comes from the child in the family who most adored shoes as a toddler. She tottered around in her aunties 5 inch heels with no trouble. Stomped around in daddies heavy shoes, Shoes were always being moved around by her and she was always trying on other children’s shoes often upsetting them. Maybe she got it all out of her system then and now has no need or desire to wear shoes again.
The only headway (or should that be footway) that we have made is that she moderately enjoyed the crocs and has worn them the most out the 50 pairs of shoes she has. There was also some success when a new teacher at the Day care said she HAD to wear shoes. She wont listen to her mother for over a year but the second a new teacher tells her she has to … She listens! That’s enough to make a parent cry. But it was a moderate success in my pitiful Shoe dilemma. So I am happy to announce that my daughter now wears shoes 2 days a week.
Next up… getting her to wear more clothes!
1 comment:
On a positive note you have her little sister to pass all those unworn shoes down to. :)
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