DD (7) says Daddy dresses her

[Anonymous]

My daughter is 7. She has been dressing herself from the skin out since age 4. She says that Daddy dresses her in the mornings she sleeps over at his house. I asked him and he admitted it. He said it's faster. I asked him to stop. He said he would, but she said he did it twice this week. I don't think he's molesting her, but this just seems weird to me. Am I being over-easily squicked?

[Anonymous]

No. Seven is too old for an adult to be dressing a child. Listen to your gut.

[Anonymous]

It is faster for him to do it. I buttoned my 9-year old son's shirt today because he kept missing a button. Is he putting her underwear on her or just pulling a shirt over her head because she whines "it won't fit"?

If it makes your daughter uncomfortable, it is okay to say something, but then she needs to get dressed in a timely manner. If she has trouble with buttons, snaps, tights, she doesn't get to wear them.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's a big deal. My kids sometimes like me to help them dress because they want attention and cuddles in the morning before we all get busy with our days. And, if your kid is not getting it done, it sure beats yelling at her.

[Anonymous]

He is dressing her from the skin out. She says that she asked him not to because he does it roughly. When she is with me, she dresses in 12-15 minutes without any assistance.
He does not help groom her hair which she actually could use help doing.

[Anonymous]

I still dress my 6 year old in the morning because it is faster and I don't want to be late. He does it on the weekends when I don't care how long it takes him. What type of clothes is she wearing? Elastic waist or pants with buttons? Dresses that need to be buttoned? Layers of clothes?

[Anonymous]

I don't think dressing a 7 year old is any indication of something 'bad' happening. Lots of parents still see their 7 year olds naked and help them with clothes.

12-15 minutes is a long time to get dressed so she is obviously dawdling, playing, and taking her time. I can see this being aggravating to a parent who is in a rush to get out the door and who hasn't built that time into the morning routine.

Him doing it is also an issue for her independence - this is something she can and wants to do on her own.

You could talk to him but you could also talk to her about getting dressed faster. It takes two minutes to pull clothes on. So you could have fun practice games at your house and remind her that when she is at dads she has to do her speed dressing instead of going slowly. Likely if she can show him she can get dressed in a reasonable amount of time then he will back off.

If you can talk to him I would approach it from the independence point of view and that you are helping her learn to get dressed in a more time efficient way.

[Anonymous]

Just tell him she needs 20 min. to get dressed. He prob. expects her to get ready quickly, and she doesn't.

You should tell her to get dressed more quickly. Maybe ask him to lay out her clothes the night before.

[Anonymous]

It's not a creepy thing at all to me - when my sons are running slow in the morning I sometimes help them get dressed so they can get out the door. How could that be creepy? I've seen them naked since the first day they were born! Most of the time they do it alone, but on a sluggish day I button pants or pull shirts over heads. To me it's not even lousy parenting - some people are just sluggish occasionally and I'm not going to give them a hard time about it. No big deal. The fact that you've turned this into something creepy is the most worrying bit to me. I mean, if she was 16 I could see the problem...

[Anonymous]

I'll try to chill over it, but it still seems weird to me. She wears leggings or footless tights, a elastic waist skirt over it and a pullover top most school days. No buttons or zippers.
I guess I find it creepy is because he doesn't do other things for her. He doesn't brush her hair. He doesn't even fix her breakfast. She gets a Poptart from the box and a Capri Sun.

[Anonymous]

The important thing is to maintain a relationship of trust with your daughter so that she tells you if anything really worrisome happens.

If your DD is uncomfortable with dressing help, then you have to help her speak out. But don't let your fears "persuade" her that this is an inappropriate situation just because a father shouldn't help his daughter dress. If he is too rough, then she should protest about that specifically.

Personally I find it strange that you immediately jump to "molesting" concerns over such a normal occurrence as helping with dressing. All the parents (fathers or mothers) I know help more or less, even at that age. My husband helps 8yo DS with tricky rugby shirt buttons and I am sure he will help DD dress when she reaches that age. Everyone sees each other naked at some point in our family and that is not a problem.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like he doesn't plan ahead or is not a morning person or is otherwise rushed in the a.m., and then rushes about, trying to get everything done. So, he helps her dress in order to speed things along, hustles her to leave the house w/ her messy hair (prob. b/c he doesn't know how to do it or is aware of what he needs to do), and grabs a poptart and a capri sun, both of which are quick and portable. As a nonmorning person, I spot the "rushed-ness" which is the common thread in all these things, a lot of which I cop to when I am in a hurry too!!!

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you are over thinking this--or perhaps looking for something that isn't there because of unresolved issues with your ex.

[Anonymous]

You can't control everything that goes on at his house. In fact, if you were still co-parenting, you can't control this. He's not molesting her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still dress my 6 year old in the morning because it is faster and I don't want to be late. He does it on the weekends when I don't care how long it takes him. What type of clothes is she wearing? Elastic waist or pants with buttons? Dresses that need to be buttoned? Layers of clothes?

same here. He dresses himself at night when he can dawdle, but in the mornings - I do it. it's faster and is less of a hassle (he'll whine about not wanting to get dressed)