At What Age Should Kids Start Caring About How They Dress?

As someone who cares a great deal about how I present myself to the world AND as someone who takes a great deal of pleasure in that presentation, I often wonder what kind of relationships my children will have with clothes.

Having an interest or passion in something having to do with appearance is a little sticky when it comes to your kids. On the one hand, you want to share with them the importance of it, but on the other hand, you don’t want to make them feel self-conscious and give them a complex.

It’s the same with any of our interests, though, isn’t it? Whether that interest is clothing, reading, sports, or whatever, there’s always the risk of pushing it too hard or too early on kids which will just push them away and make them hate whatever the thing is.

But things like reading and fitness NEED to be specifically taught to children when they’re young. Little kids need to be read to and they need to get exercise for the health of their bodies and minds. The ins-and-outs of style, though, aren’t required in the same way at such a young age.

So, what IS the right age for children to start focusing on how they dress? Honestly, at this point in my fatherhood journey, I’m not quite sure. But my oldest son is seven and I can say with certainty that the right age is NOT seven.

When kids are really young, like early elementary school age, they are in this beautiful time when their clothes are not used in any sort of communicative way, like ours are. A kid’s job is to just be a kid. To learn kindness, cooperation, confidence, and empathy. Clothes are meant to convey your best self to the world, but kids haven’t established their “selves” yet, so their clothes are not seen by the rest of the world in that way until they become older.

Until they’re older, their clothes are almost entirely utilitarian outside of small flourishes of personality (like favorite cartoon characters on their shirts, for instance) or infrequent occurrences that call for specialized clothing, like weddings.

So, we have established that children’s clothes are not communicative in the same way adults’ clothes are until that child gets “older”. But what’s “older”? Well, that will differ for each child.

I think there are two main markers for when a child should start seriously considering what they put on, in the way that adults do.

The first marker is if a child decides they WANT to start communicating something to the world. If they have a desire to appear a certain way (responsible, hard-working, trustworthy) then they’ll need guidance from you on how to do that. This time might coincide with other markers of adulthood, like getting a first job or even being interested in romantic relationships.

Keep in mind that when a child realizes that his or her clothes have power and “say” something to the world, they might initially go in a wholly undesirable direction with it! As guys who love classic menswear, I know we all hope our kids are going to embrace things like tweeds, sweaters, and all kinds of tailoring, but remember that children are going to dress in a way that gains them acceptance from their peers.

And to us, the result of that is probably going to look awful! I mean, try to remember some of the really terrible outfits you wore as a young person that you thought looked super cool at the time.

But that’s ok! Your kids don’t have to dress like you as long as they understand how the world outside their peer group views them. If they are at the point where they are dressing to make some sort of statement, then the training wheels can come off and you can be honest and straightforward with them about how their clothing choices affect other people’s opinions of them. As long as you are kind about it, you can let them know that the world might not view them so favorably, even if their friends do.

The second marker for when a child should start caring about how they dress is if the child starts to look kinda-sorta like an adult. Obviously, this time will be different for all kids but it will probably be sometime around late middle school or early high school (and the onset of puberty).

Sadly, unlike the first marker, your child has no control over this. It’s an unfortunate truth that people may start judging your child and forming opinions about them based on their clothes (the same way they would with any adult) before your child is ready. Both my sons are quite large for their ages so I suspect this will happen to them. At a certain point, other adults may not be able to tell that your fourteen-year-old isn’t twenty. They’ll just see what appears to be a grown-up and form their opinions accordingly.

When a child reaches this stage, it might be difficult for them to manage. As adults, we know how to USE other people’s opinions to our advantage. We know how to dress in order to be seen how we want. We have learned that while it can sometimes be cruel, other people’s snap judgements of us based on our clothes can be a powerful asset. A kid grappling with the discomfort of puberty will find it especially confusing that adults will now judge him based on his clothes when that was never the case before.

Being a kid is hard. But like with all kids’ struggles, it’s our job to warmly guide them through those difficult times.

There are three things to keep in mind when helping your child along at the beginning of their style journey to ensure they have a healthy relationship with clothes.

First, praise the effort not the result. I said before that once your child realizes that their clothes have power, they might wear some pretty, by our standards, terrible outfits. Outfits that, in your mind, portray them in a way that is antithetical to your values or how you view them. If that happens, there is danger in getting all bent out of shape at the result. Sure, YOU might not like what they put on, but if you start getting on their case about it, not only will they continue to dress that way out of spite (because they now realize that their clothes “say” things and what they might choose to “say” is “Screw you, Dad!”) but their confidence will be shaken. In an effort to help them dress well and improve their confidence and sense of self, you will do the complete opposite.

Instead, praise the effort. If you see them putting time and thought into what they put on, acknowledge that, even if you don’t particularly like how it looks. This is especially true if you see them attempt to dress well by your standards. If their clothes are ill-fitting (which they will be) or if their colors are off or whatever, don’t nitpick their outfit. Those are times when they are looking for approval, so make sure you give it to them without conditions.

Above all else, always tell them how handsome or beautiful you think they are regardless of how they dress. DO NOT wrap up compliments within criticisms in an attempt to steer them in any direction, style-wise. By that I mean don’t say things like “You’re so handsome… why do you keep dressing like a slob?!” All your kid will hear is that they look like a slob which is obviously damaging to their self-esteem and their relationship with you.

Second, demonstrate the “ideal” result. You want your son to dress like a man? Well, show him how a man dresses. Sure, early on he is going to go through some experimentations, but having a strong, steady example in the house of how an adult man presents himself will give your child a guiding light to follow.

Showing your kids that you enjoy how you dress, without being preachy about it, will establish positivity around your particular style. You can absolutely share the details with them, but do it in a way that stresses the fun and the expression rather than the adherence to rules. If your kids see you enjoying it and if you can sensitively convey the benefits of dressing that way without appearing to push it on them, then your kids will be much more open to it from a young age, once they’ve gotten the experimentation out of their systems.

The third thing to keep in mind is that, yes, it is ok to have rules around what your kids can and cannot wear. They’re still your kids and, as the parent, what you (and your wife) say still goes.

If you’re going to a wedding or a nice event, it’s ok to tell your teenager to take off their hoodie and put on a jacket. Or to wear loafers instead of sneakers. Not because they look bad! But because certain events require certain clothes. And we dress a certain way in those instances because we have respect for other people. There are times when it’s not about you and someone’s wedding (for instance) is one of those times. It’s nothing against their hoodie or sneakers.

You have probably already set this expectation way before your kids reach Marker #1 or Marker #2. You’ve probably dressed them up in little blazers or dresses for special events, possibly against their protestations. They’ll probably complain about it when they’re older, too, but make sure you stress that it’s not about how they look in their chosen style, it’s simply because they need to convey respect to others for a little bit of time.

If you hold back the judgement (“You can’t wear that because it looks like crap!”) and simply state that there are certain rules for certain circumstances, it will make their preferred style less of a big deal. They’ll still probably bitch and moan about it, though, but they’ll be chafing against what they perceive as the rules of the world, not so much “Dad’s Arbitrary Rules”, which will divert their energy away from rebelling against you (hopefully).

Keep in mind that kids are little chaotic beings with zero experience. They need their parents to provide the guardrails they’ll encounter once they get into the real world. Those guardrails provide stability and order, which kids need, even if they intentionally bounce against them once in a while.

It should be noted that all of this is coming from the perspective of a dad with two sons. I don’t have little girls so I don’t know how dads are supposed to handle their daughters’ clothing choices when they get older.

There is always murkiness when it comes to establishing rules or guidelines around young girls’ clothing choices. With boys, there isn’t the same kind of “You can’t wear that!” based solely on how they look as there is with girls. By that, I mean that while more mature-looking children will be judged by adults for what they’re wearing (as I mentioned earlier in Marker #2), with girls there is definitely a creepy and predatory undercurrent to that judgement.

And while a girl or woman shouldn’t have to deal with that, the reality is that she will. It’s unfortunate that part of the “language” of clothing affects women’s personal safety. Men don’t usually have to deal with anything like that, so clothing choices, for men are, by comparison, much more “low stakes”. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. And we need to speak the language that exists, not the one we hope it will evolve into someday.

I get that. Which is often why dads are so overly protective of their little girls and what they wear. So, it’s ok to tell your daughter she can’t wear certain things now that she looks more like a grown-up. Young people don’t have the tools to handle certain kinds of attention from actual adults. They need to be a bit older and have a little more real-world experience before they can start ably fielding or deflecting the attention they’ll get from how they dress. Again, it’s not nearly as much of an issue for boys as it is for girls because boys don’t have to worry about their personal safety in the same way girls do (usually).

More simply put: the judgements cast upon girls for what they wear have the potential to be much more consequential and dangerous than the judgements cast upon boys.

The tightrope that parents need to walk on this subject is how to make your little girl understand how her clothing choices are viewed by others without making her feel ashamed or embarrassed of her body.

I think the same tactic applies to both girls and boys. Always make sure they know that YOU think they’re the most beautiful of God’s creations. But be honest with them about how the wider public will interpret their clothing choices and have them think about whether or not that interpretation is desirable.

The best thing you can do is set an example for your kids. They’ll learn more from watching you (and your wife) than from what you tell them. Clothes are fun and can be a potent weapon we can wield to achieve our goals, but they can be a source of misery and anxiety for kids.

Make sure you guide them along with love, patience, and understanding even if you don’t agree with how they dress. As long as they know that your approval of their appearance is not conditional, they’ll eventually come around.

Hopefully.