A few weeks ago I saw a tween girl shopping in Goodwill with her family while wearing a dragon Halloween type costume. I casually mentioned it to my sister, and her reaction was “So what, if it makes her feel good about herself to dress up like a dragon, she should be able to do so”. I don’t disagree with that sentiment, but it still struck me as unusual, it’s not something myself or any other kid I knew would have done growing up in the 80s.
I guess my question is: Is it more normal for kids to express themelves / cosplay / dress up / wear costumes whenever / wear whatever than when I was growing up in the 80s? I’m assuming the answer is yes, any other ancedotes of your kids or kids you’ve seen doing this? Is this more specific to kids that are “on the spectrum” or is it common for “neurotypical” kids to do it too?
I remember this kind of thing in the 80s and 90s when my kids were little. It was mostly girls wearing princess type costumes. Going back to the stone age when I was a lad it wasn’t uncommon to see a young boy wearing cowboy regalia or wearing a Daniel Boone/Davy Crockett type genuine artificial replica coonskin hat.
Playing dress up in public, wearing costumes to the grocery store ? Of course it’s expected from children! I also had a bin of clothing pieces they’d rummage through for scarves, skirts, wigs, fairy wings, silks, etc etc. my youngest loved wearing a tulle skirt over her long pants in winter. This was at home on school days it was not permitted.
That’s because in the 1980s a “dragon costume” would have been a plastic mask held on by a rubber band and a trash bag with arm holes and a cartoon dragon printed on it.
Whoever took hospital pictures of the Lil’wrekker put feather angel wings thingy and laid her on it. I was kinda disturbed when I got them. I thought it meant she would die
Oh no. She lived.
Did Cos-play. Theatre in school.
And has been dressing up ever since
She young 20s now and doing community theatre regularly. Still costuming.
And she was never adverse to wearing this stuff in public.
I have students who’ll occasionally wearing a costume, or a piece of a costume, to school. I think it’s a tribute to how popular super-heroes, video games, pokemon, and cosplay have become. And a tribute to how stressful school can be…
A 10 or 11 year old could look much younger, or an 8 or 9 year old look much older. I wasn’t wearing cowboy or frontiersman costumes when I was 11 or 12, but I was still wearing scouting uniforms, others were wearing any gear from sports they played. And soon we all would be growing our hair long and wearing bell bottoms which was another type of costuming, and eventually it turned into all sorts of personal decoration. So I wouldn’t expect 12 year olds be wearing Halloween type costumes in public, but still wearing fashion or cultural type costumes, and some cross-overs in age and variety.
But yeah, tweens as technically defined less likely than younger children, but not entirely unknown for the tween years.
I remember growing up, there was a kid across the street, maybe about three or four years old, who would come out to play wearing his Batman costume from Halloween. One day he ripped the seat of his pants, went back inside, and when he came back out his entire butt was covered in Scotch tape.
But yeah, that’s something I’d think you grow out of around the age of five.
Absolutely. I’m imagining this dragon costume as a nice soft onesie with a lovely cowl and hood that keeps her safely tucked away in a little cocoon of fleece while she navigates the space where she doesn’t want to be.
If we had that sort of lovely costume in the 80s, instead of those plastic monstrosities, surely we would have worn them outside of Halloween too.
Dress-up, costume, and role play is very common. We had a big box of various pieces that the kids could mix and match. Clothes like hats, headbands, crowns, badges, wristbands, boas, tabards, chaps, wrap-arounds, aprons, coats, etc. And props like wands, swords, shields, stethoscopes, flashlights, eventually nerf guns. Great fun for play dates; mostly outgrew it by age 10. They’d play make believe or perform costume dramas.
It’s active creative play that’s an alternative to passive activities like reading a book or watching a screen.
Lots of little kids (up to maybe 5yo) get on kicks where it’s easier to let them go with it than to argue with them about it. My sister, when she was around 3, insisted on wearing her winter jacket all summer. She’d even wear it over her swim suit (not in the water)! I had a cousin that insisted on wearing mittens all day every day when he was 3 or 4. They luckily outgrew it within a few months. So I can see costumes as being a thing for the little kiddos. I don’t agree with teenagers wearing capes to school.
Some interesting points here I hadn’t thought of, about how if a kid wants to wear a costume and you need to leave in 10 minutes, it’s not like you’re going to make an issue of it. And how commerical 80s Halloween costumes really sucked (my mom would generally make our costumes).
I also had the thought the parents probably think “good thing she wants to wear that instead of clothes that show off her tummy and the top of her butt cheeks” like you see a lot of other tweens and teens doing. In the overall framework of raising a kid, a kid wanting to go out in a cute and modest Halloween costume isn’t a big deal.
I tried to look for the costume in question on Google, now I realize it was was actually a dinosaur costume since it had spikes on the back like a Stegasaurus. Something similar to this
(Something about the hood made me remember it as a dragon originally)
So yeah, a cozy, comfortable-looking fleece onsie instead of a mask and printed plastic trash bag.
Kid was probably 10-11, although A) I didn’t get a close look at her, the family was outside the store walking to their car when I was inside, B) as has been pointed out, it’s hard to tell a kid’s age at times, and C) I’m not very good at that anyway.
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