Dressing children as adults and the risk of child hypersexualization

Go walking along the street and see children well dressed and well groomed is something that always moves us and makes us not fix what they wear. T-shirts of thousand colors, pants with drawings, shirts that light up when walking or even make noise, pigtails that defy gravity, etc. However, the children's clothes are changing little by little.

Far away are the tracksuits of too many colors to identify them all and even served to teach children a wide variety of shades and tones. Nowadays what is styled is dress children as adults.

If we look closely at the fashion stores, we will see that in their windows dressed children appear as they mark the "trends" of fashion for adults. When we look, we see those hats and caps placed with style, shoes even with a little heel and even decorative handkerchiefs. In the shop window it looks endearing, but are these types of clothes suitable for our children?

Making our children beautiful

Going out on the street with our son is always a task that involves going through parks, getting on benches, going down, falling to the ground, etc. Our conscious is informed of what it is going to suppose, but our subconscious wants to dress our son practically like a doll. That is the dilemma when we approach the wardrobe to choose clothes.

What clothes do we put? From our vision of adults, one has to go out in the street well combined, well combed and well perfumed. We choose types of garments depending on the type of activity we are going to perform. The heels in the gym are discarded as well as the shorts and slippers are in our position of employment.

If we have things so clear when choosing our clothes, why do not we put ourselves in our son's shoes to know what we should put him. We have to analyze the activities that our son is going to carry out along that exit and put us "in his shoes".

Going to the park for an adult means sitting down and accompanying our son while he plays and socializes, in this case we could wear tight jeans. However, for the same exit to the park, why do not we put tight jeans on our children with those who are so handsome and create style? The answer, once the situation is analyzed, is quite clear to us: "in the park sportswear".

The activities that our son will develop in the park are not other than climbing, crawling, jumping down slides, approaching the plants, observe the ants and basically clean the floor with the clothes you wear. Knowing that we have to choose a good wardrobe that suits these needs, since wearing the wrong attire will not only cause stress and concern for the state of clothing but also coerce your child when making certain movements and activities . If your child is not comfortable, he will not enjoy the same way and will not relate to others with the same freedom.

Therefore, we must adjust the wardrobe of our children to the needs they are going to have.

Some drawbacks of dressing our children as adults

Apart from the basically functional aspect that we have already exposed, other factors appear that can psychologically affect your child: too much concern for his physical appearance, distancing himself from his childhood and in some cases hypersexualization.

Regarding the first section, we are continually reminding our son that physical appearance is more important than other actions such as: playing or eating an ice cream enjoying a sunset. The adult association of "beauty costs".

Our son in his value system will invest the importance of enjoying the moments to be handsome. As adults we know how to discern, but the message that comes to them is this.

On the other hand, when dressing as adults, children are identified with older people. Your peers, the people who dress like them are 20 or 30 years old. Therefore, the activities that they imitate and pretend to achieve resemble adults forgetting in some aspects their childhood and "growing too fast".

Finally when we talk about hypersexualization, we mean to those totally inadequate clothes like miniskirts, necklines or backs to the air. We also include makeup as part of this phenomenon.

Through television and movies children observe and recognize a type of wardrobe associated with stereotypes and people entrenched in their sexuality. Introducing this type of garments in their wardrobe makes them worry and take into account their sexuality long before they are ready for their understanding and maturational development. This article is published for informational purposes only. You can not and should not replace the consultation with a Pediatrician. We advise you to consult your trusted pediatrician.

DRESS CODE SEXISM (March 2024)