Recently I received a question from a reader about her soon to be adopted daughter’s inappropriate clothing choices. If you have parented older children from the foster care system or adopted from an orphanage then you have probably dealt with these issues as well. It may help you, to help your child, if you understand where these habits originated. We were a little surprised and disgusted when we realized what was happening at our house. Our first sibling group, a teenager, and her younger sister helped to train us when we were new foster and adoptive parents. The teenager would scrounge through the dirty clothes hamper, get dressed, and go off to school. We had toddlers in cotton training pants at the time as well as a children struggling with encopresis (pooping in her clothing.) The teenager was aware of this and it makes the thought of digging clothes out of the hamper a little more disgusting doesn’t it?

Here is part of the question asked.

My future 11 year old has trouble dressing appropriately, but not necessarily modestly. She doesn't understand cleanliness of clothes, or that wearing clothing to small is unflattering. She is also having a hard time understanding why wearing a bra is important. How do I sensitively convey these messages?

After our daughters had been with us for a while, they began to open up about things that had happened in their birth home. When they lived at home, their parents rarely did laundry. Grandparents would occasionally come, gather the dirty clothes in trash bags, take them home, wash them, and bring them back clean in trash bags. The children began keeping all of their clothes in trash bags, both clean and dirty. In the morning, before school, they would rummage through trash bags to find the least soiled clothes and wear those to school. To her it was normal to wear dirty clothes, she had done it most of her life. In an orphanage, children may only have one set of clothes that is rarely washed.

This isn’t an issue in our home anymore because I do laundry everyday. With 10 people living in our home, if I waited more than a day, the entire laundry room would be filled. I will address the other issues tomorrow. Thank you so much for the great questions, keep them coming.

Related blogs
How Do I Stop My Adopted Daughters from Wearing Dirty Clothes?
Does Your Teenager Dress Modestly?
My Adopted Daughters Dress Inappropriate

Photo credit Lane Fuller 2006