It depends on school, kids, location. Never happened to my kids. I just asked 10- year old and he has no idea what I'm talking about. None of his friends and classmates wear fancy clothes. More often than not they wear the same clothes over and over again and those soccer jerseys.
Most kids are form MC/UMC families and clothes really are not a thing as long as they are comfortable.
Our high school kid looks like a homeless dude. Even his
backbag is old and zipper broken. I think he is in some kind of competition about who can look the worse.
Ask about being teased, but it may not be because of clothes. I actually thought the same some 13 years ago

My very tiny daughter came home from second grade asking why she was wearing "baby" clothes. I could not figure out what could be wrong with her solid longsleeve tshirt...until she pointed out the Baby Gap tiny tag on the side. The shirt was never worn again. She spoke. I listened.

Anonymous wrote:It depends on where you live. Mine never have and I've never bought expensive things.

+1

MS here and have never encountered it.

My rising 4th grader definitely developed her own style preferences in the past year or so beyond just comfort. Her close friends vary from having a very specific & polished look to completely un-style conscious/dressed quite young. No one seems to get teased and no one is particularly brand conscious yet, thankfully. (Even where kids are brand conscious, it's about being into 1 or 2 specific brands, not expensive brands v cheap brands or anything along those lines.)

There were a small handful of girls who cared about clothing starting end of 4th or 5th. In 6th it became much more prevalent, with many comparing brands and some girls wearing full face makeup. But my kid, who dresses quirky, never got teased by anyone for clothes. Mocked ruthlessly for other (rather ridiculous) things, but not clothes. It's not that brands don't matter - Nike was huge, Stanleys were all the rage, Sephora was as big as you'd expect, friendship bracelets and Kendra Scott were in. But kids didn't get mocked for not having those brands, they just bragged when they did.

Just listen to your child. If a brand or style is important to them you will hear about. Enjoy doing what makes sense to you until then. Some kids never care other care very much.

Going into 6th, has a quirky, young style. Hasn't been bullied but the cool, trendy kids don't have much to do with her. I think they see her as an oddball. But she doesn't really care, has her own small friend group and dresses how she wants.

Never. My kids never cared what they wore. One liked the newest trends and dressed that way. One gave no f#cks and wore baggy shorts and shorts. Third kid is in private so they wear uniforms. None of them were teased.

The Prada backpacks start in 3rd grade

2nd grade. If your kids can’t handle the other kids by now and stand up for themselves they never will

My parents never had a lot of money, but they always let us pick out one or two trendy pairs of sneakers just because they were cool. If you have the means to help your child fit in, you absolutely should make an effort. Being a middle schooler is very, very hard emotionally. Most adults would hate returning to that age themselves. Anything that even slightly removes some challenges (like cooler clothes) without compromising your family’s values (no phones, curfews, etc.) is a gift to your child.

My kid was traded in second grade for wearing babyish clothes. Kid is also neurodivergent so it’s possible the other kids sensed something was off and were looking for a reason to target them. It was also the return from Covid lockdowns so nobody was coping well socially.

My daughter is going into 8th and she cares about what she wears, but it's the overall look and not the brand (other than loving converse sneakers). She's in a fairly dorky and artsy friend group yet off the radar of the "mean kids"--so I think the people she's around most of the time just aren't kids who care much about this stuff?

My son is going into 5th grade this year and cares not at all about clothes. He did make an offhand comment once that a kid tried to make fun of his sneakers for being "no brand" and it was dumb because they were Adidas. He just seemed baffled by it and not at all bothered. I don't think he'd care if he was wearing unbranded sneakers, he picked the ones he has because they were comfortable and liked the color--he was bothered by the factual error not the teasing.

I have a late elm school and middler schooler. I don’t hear about anyone being made fun of for clothes. Closest thing I’ve heard is that wearing jeans is weird and why would anyone do that they are so uncomfortable?

Anonymous wrote:I feel like this is more a trope from tv and film rather than something that is a real issue. Once your kids get old enough they will start expressing their opinions on what they want to wear. If you have raised them right they won’t want expensive things just to fit in. And their friends won’t be the kind of people that bully them because of what they wear.

+1.

My kids range from 11 to 24, and we’ve always been a frugal family - thrifting, buying at garage sales, etc. as far as I know, none of my kids have been bullied for their clothes. I do tend to buy brand name footwear just because in my experience it lasts longer and wears better.