Do you have one of those kids who rip off their socks, turn them inside out, and rip them off again?  Who react to any hint of a label, and cannot wear jeans?  Some kids have sensory sensitivities.  Things in the environment bother these kids.  A lot. 

There are a number of excellent books explaining sensory challenges and pointing parents toward solutions (for example The Out of Sync Child and Sensational Kids).  If you have a sensory-sensitive child, you might want to pick one of them up.  In the meantime, here are two strategies to make clothing battles a thing of the past – one is for you and one is to teach to your child:

(For you) Get rid of the blue jeans.  As much as you might love the way he looks in blue jeans, button-down shirts, corduroys, clothing with fancy stitching – some makes/fabrics/styles are simply more difficult for kids with sensory sensitivities to wear.  Go through your child’s drawers and clear out the items you know are really tough.  The clothes made of stiff fabric, with lumpy seams or tight necklines.  Think soft, non-constricting, tag-less (what a great invention, those stamped-on clothing labels!).  If your child likes a certain style of sweatpants, get 3 or 4 pairs.  Ditto for socks, shirts, underwear.  Put all the clothing your child is never going to wear (the worst offenders, the things you can sort-of understand him reacting to) into a bag and bring it to Goodwill.  Or give it to the neighbor who just had a baby.  Get this clothing out of your house – its continued presence is only going to frustrate you (and your child).

Once you’ve pared down to (or stocked up on) the things that should work for your child, teach him to habituate.  Here’s how:

(Many thanks to Tamar Chansky, PhD, in whose wonderful book, Freeing Your Child From Anxiety, I first discovered this metaphor)

Talk to your child about jumping into a swimming pool.  Have him imagine what the water feels like – Brrrrrrr!  It’s cold.  Ask your child what he would do next.  Most kids say something along the lines of “start moving around.”  Yes, you start swimming or playing, diving deep beneath the surface or paddling from one end of the pool to the other and after a while, what do you notice?  Most kids can tell you, “It warms up.”  Ahhh.  But is it the pool that’s warmed up?  Has the water temperature actually changed?  “No,” any self-respecting 6-year can tell you, “You get used to it!”  Exactly.

Our bodies are designed to get used to things, even uncomfortable things – like cold water.  We just need to hang in there, and pretty soon, we don’t notice the cold any more.  It happens even faster if we’re doing something fun, liking racing to the end of the pool or diving for treasure.  But you have to stay in the pool.

It’s like that with socks (or underwear, or shirts, or pants), too.  We can put them on (that’s like jumping into the pool) and keep them on (that’s like staying in, even though - ICK – they don’t feel right) and go get busy with something else (playing with the dog or eating breakfast or watching TV) and pretty soon…you’ve gotten used to it and your body doesn’t notice the seam/cuff/fabric any more.

The pool analogy makes keeping the item of clothing on (to habituate to it) more palatable to kids.  Most have had the experience of getting used to cold water.  They know the basics – you have to stay in; you have to start moving around, turn your attention to something else.  Talk to your child about this, then sweeten the pot by offering a reward: each day your child puts on his [whatever item of clothing causes trouble] and keeps it on, puts it on and immediately leaves the room to get busy with something else for at least 20 minutes (ample time for most kids to acclimate), he earns a point.  Once he has 10 points, he can trade them in for a trip to the bookstore, one-on-one time with Dad, a family-wide Monopoly night, something meaningful/rewarding to your child.

The idea is to take into account the reality of your child’s sensitivity AND to teach him a useable skill.  Has anyone tried this with their sensory-challenged kids?  How did it work?