Morning Stress

We received this email recently as part of our “Ask Us Anything” Series:

Dear Cecilia and Jason,

My six-year-old girl has been very stressed about getting dressed in the morning. She has a lot of clothes and she choses outfits by herself. She often says she doesn't like her clothes, or that they are too loose.

She says that her clothes are scratchy (even some that she’s worn for a long time are suddenly unbearable). If the specific pieces she likes aren't clean (and sometimes even when they are clean), she lays on the floor, with loud whines, complaints, and she won’t get dressed (I do laundry frequently so we can avoid this).

There are mornings when I'm totally patient (believe me, it's not easy), mornings when my 8 year old helps her, and mornings when I become the three-headed monster that I hate to be.

When I loose my cool, we reconnect. I tell her why it's so upsetting to me, and she tells me the same. I understand but it’s hard to have patience with her because this happens every morning.

Lately we decided to choose outfits for school the night beforehand. Of the three times we’re tried this, a similar process happened in the morning.

She also won't get dressed alone, so it stalls the process. I realize more time for preparing for school would be ideal, but it seems we use every second, even though we are waking up around 6am.

Thanks for your help!!
“Lauren” (not her real name)

Lauren,

You’ve already done so much to try to smooth out your mornings, but things are still stressful. Hopefully one of these suggestions will be the “missing link” that makes everything work out.

Here are our ideas:

Tune in to what is going on in your head: Even a very patient, even-tempered, understanding parent might go “bonkers” with the situation that you’ve just described, morning after morning of stress and struggle. If you were feeling angry about how your daughter is acting, it would make sense to us. Here’s a blog post about anger that totally nailed me in an “I completely do that and I can see now how to do things differently” way.
Keep in mind that when she is complaining, whining, and crying, she is probably speaking and behaving from the lower, emotional part of the brain—not the (prefrontal cortex) part that houses creative problem solving, reasoning, and language skills. Connect to this emotional part before you try to shift her into solving problems. This is called “Connect and Redirect” from the Whole Brain Child and you can read more about it here
Have her be in the best state of mind to tackle this problem creatively by talking to her outside the moment (during a quiet time while you’re driving in the car, or taking a walk or snuggling on the couch together). Brainstorm how to tackle this problem together with her. What are her ideas? Think of something that you can both agree to try for a short period of time. Make a plan, draw or write it out. Then review the plan to see if it worked, get specific about what parts did/didn’t work, and tweak as needed.
Think outside the box. How far “outside the box” you can go depends on your situation, your family values, etc. But here are some ideas to consider, in advance, for days when your daughter is really struggling to get dressed:
1. Can she wear her PJs to school?
2. Can she wear her clothes to bed? Then she’ll avoid getting dressed entirely.
3. Can she get dressed in the car when you’re running late?
4. Does she need some super soft undergarments that would help with the scratchiness?
5. Does she have too many choices; maybe she wants you to put some options away to make things easier?
We don't know you or your daughter. At first blush, it seems like this reactivity that she is experiencing is bigger than normal for a child of her age. It could be fruitful to examine if there is something else happening here? Meaning: Is this struggle about getting dressed in the morning really about getting dressed? Looking at the other stresses in your daughter’s life can give you clues about why morning time might be such a struggle. Are there other times of her day that she needs such a high level of support? Are there other situations in which she is reactive to tactile input (limited diet, doesn’t want to touch sticky, wet, slimy things, etc.)? If you are seeing patterns of struggle in other areas, or if you see that she struggles more with things that other children don’t seem to struggle with, then it may be time to get support from a professional—an occupational therapist who can assess how she processes sensory information, or psychologist who can help her make sense of the “bigness” of her feelings.