Promoting the autonomy of our children since they are young is key for them to learn to do things for themselves, and become children with self-confidence and independent. Among the many tasks that we can teach and encourage them to do is to dress themselves, choosing the clothes they want to wear and learning to keep it in place later.
But to make it easy for you to do it, Your closet should be conditioned to your height, and your clothes tidy following some guidelines. We give you some keys that you can put into practice to organize the wardrobe of your kids Montessori style and promote autonomy when dressing.
To encourage their autonomy in dressing, we must adapt their wardrobe
Allowing the child to dress alone, choosing their own clothes and imitating our daily routines will help them gain autonomy and become aware of yourself and your body scheme.
But this task cannot be done if your closet is not properly conditioned or your clothes are not placed following some patterns. And, as with the decoration and furniture of the rest of our home, If we want to promote autonomy in the young child, we must adapt to their needs to the fullest.
In Babies and more How to create a Montessori environment in our home: furniture, ideas and tips to keep in mindAccording to experts in the Montessori method, these are some of the considerations that we must take into account when teaching our children to dress alone:
1) The first and main thing is that the closet is the right size for the child.
2) Store clothes in the closet in easy access drawers for the child, which are not very full and, if possible, transparent.
3) Place the clothes following a logical order for the child. For example, we can choose to store the upper garments in the highest drawers (hats, scarves, t-shirts ...), in the central drawers we will store the pants, skirts and underwear, and in the lower drawers the socks and footwear.
4) We can help you identify the clothes of the drawers with stickers or vinyls of the garments that we keep inside. In this way it will be easy for the child to find a certain garment at first sight.
5) If we hang your clothes on hangers, the bar must be placed at its height so that the child has easy access to the clothes.
6) It is advisable to have a night gallant or a chair where the child can leave ready the clothes that will be put on the next day. We must teach him to place the garments in the order in which he will put them, to help him build his body scheme.
7) At the entrance to our house we can place a small coat rack at the child's height so you can leave your coat. We will also place a basket on the floor to store your hat, scarf, gloves, cap, sunglasses ...
8) And finally, let's not forget to place a stool to help you with the task of putting on shoes or pants, as well as a mirror located at your height that allows you to see your entire body thus facilitating the integration of your body scheme.
Ten examples to get inspired
We can opt for sliding door cabinets, if the room space is small, or even for a cupboard without doors, so that it is very easy for the child to see his clothes at a first glance.
There are also families who choose to place a bar with baskets, at the bottom, where to store smaller clothes, or even simply adapt the lower part of your own dressing room for your children.
In Babies and more How to create a room for Montessori-inspired children with Ikea itemsThese are some of the examples that we have found on Instagram and that can inspire you:
See this post on InstagramA shared publication of Mueblinos (@mueblinos) on Mar 16, 2018 at 9:18 p.m. PDT
See this post on InstagramA shared post by Madera De Montessori (@maderademontessori) on Jun 21, 2018 at 12:58 p.m. PDT
See this post on InstagramA shared publication of MobiliarioMobler (@mobiliariomobler) on Jul 6, 2018 at 4:17 p.m. PDT
See this post on InstagramA shared publication of pati_pcg 🌼🏵️🌻🌿 (@la__asilvestrada) on Sep 3, 2018 at 12:42 p.m. PDT
See this post on InstagramA shared publication of Bainba.com (@bainba_en) on Nov 16, 2018 at 12:39 PST
See this post on InstagramA shared post from Nicole | Polished Playhouse (@polishedplayhouse) on Dec 28, 2018 at 9:18 PST
See this post on InstagramA shared publication of Muebles ROS (@mueblesros) on Jul 11, 2018 at 9:00 p.m. PDT
See this post on InstagramA shared publication of 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒊𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒂𝑴𝒊𝒂 (@montessoriparamia) on Apr 7, 2018 at 3:58 p.m.
See this post on InstagramA publication shared by Audrey Migliani (@ambientepreparado) on Nov 1, 2018 at 4:26 p.m. PDT
See this post on InstagramA shared post by Nadia Shamray (@nadiashamray) on Jul 11, 2018 at 12:40 p.m. PDT
