Parenting School Aged Children: Make School Clothes Last All Year Long

All parents should care how their children look when they get on that bus first thing in the morning. How you send your children to school shows a lot about how you parent. However, it is not always easy to keep those new looking clothes looking new. Kids are messy. Not on purpose, but the activities they do are not ones that are easy on the clothes they are wearing!

Okay. Here's the battle. You have to make a choice...either you do more laundry or you spend twice the money. That's the catch. Here's the trick...

Enlist in play clothes. When you come across a shirt that has a stain in it that just won't come out declare it a play shirt. Same for pants. When the pants are worn too badly in the knees or they are stained looking it's time to call them play pants.

Keeping play clothes separate designates the other clothes as school clothes. When your children are home from school encourage them to wear their play clothes when they go out side. Same idea applies to weekends at home. Wearing play clothes to play in saves the school clothes lives. When your kids get home from school you can have them change into play clothes. No more play or dinner stains on their good school clothes!

Once you enlist in play clothes make sure to wash them separately from the school clothes. Play clothes are more soiled and if washed in the washing machine with the school clothes they may make them dingy or stained. Washing school clothes only with school clothes also helps to maintain them by preventing such.

It does happen every now and then that your children school clothes will get a spot or a stain on them. Try, try your best to get it out by washing it as soon as possible. It usually helps to pre-treat the stain or spot with detergent or a stain remover first. Soaking the article of clothing can also help greatly. School clothes need special care and attention to stay good as new all year long.

The way your children are dressed when they go to school is important. Parents can save a lot of money on school clothes by enlisting in play clothes. When children wear play clothes to play in their school clothes do not get ruined during play! So, the next time one of your child's shirts or pairs of pants is stained or torn consider it a play clothes item. Save the school clothes for school and take care!