How To Teach a Child to Button Shirt

A suit is a staple in a lot of occasions. With a pair of matching shoes, anyone can shine on formal events. The same goes for your kids. Especially on formal occasions, it’s nice to see adorable kids in a finely selected suit and some stylish shoes. Not only do they are an excellent choice for these occasions, but it’s also relatively easy to find them in shops, whether physical or online. We do love dressing up our kids, but in time, they will need to learn how to wear suits and shoes all by themselves. While wearing a jacket can be an easy task for growing toddlers, wearing a buttoned-shirt may be hard. So the question is, how can you teach your kids to wear a button shirt all by themselves? 

Are They Ready? 

Before expecting your kids to develop the dressing skills to wear a button shirt, you must first determine whether they’re ready or not. If you think about it, buttoning a shirt is a complicated thing. Doing it requires hand coordination, making it can be hard for some kids. To do it, your kids will also need muscle strength to fasten the buttons. They will also need problem-solving skills, as they need to line all the buttons and holes perfectly. On top of that, they will be in an awkward position, looking down while doing it. 

So how can you tell if they’re ready? For starters, they should be able to wear, with little assistance, t-shirts all by themselves. They should also know how to remove them by themselves. Removing socks and shoes also shows muscle strength. If your kids already know how to do these, then it’s an excellent time to move on to harder dressing skills, and that is how to button a shirt. 

Teaching Your Kids How to Button Shirt

There are many ways to teach your kids how to button a shirt. Here are some of the steps you can follow to be able to teach your kids successfully. 

1. Practice unbuttoning the shirts first. It will help them become more familiar with the process. Alternatively, you can use other means to do so. For instance, you can use a piggy bank to show your kids the process of buttoning a shirt. The act of inserting the coin to the piggy bank is akin to buttoning the clothes. You can cover the piggy bank with fabric and have the buttons as coins. 

2. After being familiarized with the process, you will need to provide your kids with verbal and physical instructions while assisting them. Make sure what you say or do remains constant, as not doing so will confuse the kids.

3. Practice makes consistency. Before moving on the actual buttoning, you may want to practice with your kids first. To do this, you can lay a shirt on a table and let your kids button it. It can further familiarize them on how it feels to button a shirt. 

4. If you decide to have them start doing themselves or doing some practice runs, there are things that you should remember. First, it’s best to use simple clothes. Shirts with big buttons will make your kids learn easier. You may also want to steer clear from printed and distracting shirts, as your kids may have a hard time focusing. Suits and corduroy shirts are some of the best practice clothing as they have larger buttons and simpler designs. 

5. Do the backward chaining method. To do this, you will need to let your kids remember and do the last step all by themselves. Once they mastered it, you can move on to the previous steps until they can do all of it themselves. Not only is this effective, but it can also build your child’s self-confidence.

Teaching a child how to button a shirt may take a lot of time. You will need a lot of patience in teaching them. Don’t worry if you think your kids are not learning as fast as others. Some kids learn faster while others may take time. One thing is for sure; if you always encourage them and support them, they’ll eventually learn how to button the shirts themselves.