My blog-mate Julie’s recent post on “Food Wars” reminded me of the clothing wars we are currently engaged in at our house. While I realize the obsessive compulsive (OCD) aspect of the behavior, I have to wonder if it is also passive aggressive behavior. Why would a young girl want to wear the same outfit several times a week when it isn’t especially cute, flattering, or have a designer label?
Dani, our ten-year-old daughter has been wearing the same three outfits for weeks now. She can be seen in the morning, digging frantically through the baskets of clean clothes. It certainly isn’t for a lack of clothing.
Her dresser, her closet, the drawers under her bed, and the clothes’ pegs in her room are all overstuffed. She has beautiful clothes, most of which she picked out herself.
Lately, her favorite outfit has been a lime green pair of shorts, which are too big, given to her by a girl at church. She wears them with a light green shirt that says CUTE on it and her green crocs. She rather reminds me of a green bean.
Ah well, some clothes seem to disappear when you put them in the washer. I’ve heard horror stories about washing machines that eat clothes, haven’t you?
When my 18-year-old daughter was younger, she used to wear her worst clothes to appointments. If she had a doctor’s appointment, counseling session, or piano lesson she wore her barn clothes. If she was staying home for the day, she wore her Sunday best. She did this from the time she was seven until she was about 15.
I talked to her about numerous times about this and frequently asked her to change her clothes before we left the house. Yet, the behavior continued. That is what led me to believe that it was passive aggressive in nature.
She is a very intelligent girl, but suffers from an attachment disorder as well as other diagnoses. She knew that it annoyed me to have her dressed like a ragamuffin.
You might remember me mentioning that Super Dad and I were fairly new and inexperienced foster parents when we accepted her and her older sister. I’m afraid I was too naïve back then to realize that you don’t let a child with an attachment disorder know that something annoys you.
Dani has been putting us through the wringer for over a year now. We all thought that her adoption would go through rather quickly. Because she had been in our home for over two years and our homestudy was already updated.
Well it hasn’t gone quickly, and in the mean time, we were matched with Amigrace’s mother and then finalized her adoption while Dani waited. That is why I feel that her clothing choices may be passive aggressive in nature.
When Adoption Takes Too Long
The Child’s Best Interest? Adoption and Foster Care
Old Habits Die Hard for Adopted Daughter Who Suffered Previous Child Abuse
It’s True! Adopting Special Needs Children Can Make You Nuts
Only One of Us Can Be Good at Home
How funny!!! My 14 yo old does the same thing, last weekend she wore a pair of brand new khaki shorts and a pale yellow dressy shirt to the “cabin in the woods” where all the kids get filthy – but she wears her jean shorts and dark colored t-shirts around the house all week. She has always done this. She’d come down on Sat. morning all dolled up in a dress, tights…and I’d say, “wow, pretty spiffed up to do chores aren’t ya?” she wouldn’t get it so she’d get sent back to change. During the school week, she’d come down in her old, faded hand-me-downs. Once a friend gave us a bag of clothes and she found a black/lime green velour sweatsuit (hideous) that was 3 sizes too big. She came downstairs 4 days out of 5 trying to wear it to school. On the 4th day it “disappeared” mysteriously. I must have the same model washer you do.
I think in my daughters case, it is definitely passive aggressive behavior. I know she has attachment issues and her mouth is really a problem when she’s talking to her siblings if she doesn’t think I can hear her. She is never pointedly disrespectful to either me or DH but has been caught being sneaky, trying to get her siblings to do naughty things, etc. so I think it’s her way of grabbing a little bit of control.
This may be unrelated, but Albert Einstein wore the same thing every day. He had several copies of the same suits and shirts so that he never had to consider what to wear. It was the same every day.
Maybe my FIL is Albert Einstein in disguise. He wears blue jeans and blue denim shirts every day. At one time DS asked him if he ever changed his clothes
FIL had to show him that there were several of the same outfit.
My 5 year old has done somewhat of the same thing. They’re just her favorite clothes. Although, she is pretty healthy and attached now.
Washing machines that eat green beans…. what a clever creation!
Whan my daughter was Dani’s age, and a little older, her three favorie colors were black, black and black. Love Muffin and I talked ourselves ragged trying to get her to explore other color options – even dark brown or Navy blue would not do for DD. As for anything even remotely pink? No way! We retreated, feeling somewhat at a loss, until we discovered the wonderful parenting tool of peer pressure! The opinions of her parents were one thing, as we had cooties and our brains had slowly been oozing intelligence since adolescence. But when her friends started commenting on her monochromatic wardrobe…. well, the Road Runner could not have changed faster than DD did!
My guess is that if she awoke day after day to one (or all) of these three favorite outfits already layed out for her (which would, of course, insinuate your blessing if not insistance that she wear these items)she would probably change her tune on the clothing issue fairly quickly. I know, I know, it only paves the way for another expression of passive/aggressive behavior, but it is definitely a sly counter to behaviors meant to gall a parent. I used a similar tactic with an ugly blue chair I wanted my husband to throw away and it worked like a charm.
Owens Mama, Thanks for the GREAT tip, I love this idea. I bet it would work like a charm. Reverse psychology, right?
Owens Mama has got a point!
You might also want to check with Nancy on the RAD blog…seems one of hers wore black overalls for quite some time.
LuLu invaribly chooses the dirtiest clothes to go out in — and the seasonally inappropriate ones too — but for very different reasons.
This is so interesting! Hilde, age 16 (adopted age 7), has been this way off and on, and is an on cycle now. Lots and lots of clothing issues upon arrival. Rejection of anything I purchased for her (or she thought I purchased); rejection of anything from a nice store and preference for anything dug up in the thrift store or given to her by someone else (who assessing from her appearance decided we did not have clothes for her). I tried to control this, but it only made it worse, so I finally gave in.
Peer pressure helped in middle school, but now that she is a sophomore, problems in all attachment arenas are resurfacing. The main things with dressing are:
1) Refusal to dress for the weather (I don’t feel cold; it’s not cold…when it is 28 degrees); t-shirts when the house is 65 and sweats and a jacket when it is 78.
2) Wearing pajamas and slippers in public (I realize this is a teenage fad, but there is a RAD flavor to this)
3) Just what you described…wearing a nice top, such as one would wear to church or a party around the house with a pair of sweat pants 2 sizes too large, and attempts to wear this outfit in public to places like church events.
4) Wearing shoes that just don’t go with the outfit, such as dressing as if going to work out and then putting on a pair of dress shoes, or dressing up and then putting on some worn out flip flops.
bali wedding, bali wedding planner, bali wedding organizer…
[...]Clothing Wars – Is it OCD or Passive Aggressive Behavior? — Parenting Children with Special[...]…