Whatever you do, don't do what I say. . . . . by Nicola Foster

When I was a girl, my mum bought my clothes and I wore them and that was the end of the story. There was no fuss or palaver about what I wore. The only major clothing incident I can remember was aged 12, when our class went to Dieppe on some hellish school trip. I had to wear a British Home Stores bobble jumper which cut up into my armpits, whilst the rest of the girls wore their fashionable batwing jumpers from C&A. For three agonising days I was surrounded by girls waving their much coveted batwings in front of my eyes as I struggled to keep the circulation moving in my arms and tried not to die of envy.

My own children, particularly the 8 year old, have very strong ideas on clothes and it seems the only thing they all agree on is to ignore any suggestions I may make, so they often wear clothes which are completely inappropriate due to weather or circumstance. Our last family outing began with the 8 year old insisting she wore summery clothes on a cloudy and blustery day. She and the 5 year old are both inclined to feel the cold but steadfastly refuse to put on a coat or jumper until their lips turn blue and they are cold and miserable. We recently had a huge battle over her decision to wear a bright pink, green and blue sequined t-shirt to school on "French Day", when the idea was they would wear the colours of the French flag. She maintained that because it was from "French Connection" it qualified.

I now find myself in a ridiculous "chicken and egg" situation. Because the children do miserable very, very well a nice day can be quickly ruined with tears, moans and hypothermia. To pre-empt this, I always take the clothes I had originally suggested out with me, so as far as the children are concerned as soon as they feel the impact of the inappropriateness of their outfits, I am on hand with a mass of sensible solutions, feeling like a human Buckaroo.

My four year old niece comes from a more robust gene pool. She is equally, if not more, sartorially eccentric than her cousins, but doesn't do the hot/cold moan. For a recent trip to the Chill Factor her outfit choice was swimming costume, tights, tutu and a gilet but she never once complained of being cold. Last week my sister-in-law sent me a photo of her fast asleep in bed resplendent in fairy dress and sequined jacket. My children would have woken up with an itchy rash or sweating buckets, but she slept like a baby all night. Other than her bedroom looking like H&M on a Saturday afternoon and an overflowing laundry basket, there are very few ramifications for my sister-in-law.

The way I see it, I have three options - abandon my human coat-hook demeanour and let them get cold, try a bit of reverse psychology by asking them to do the opposite of what I want them to or - and this could be the most effective - I could unearth my unsightly non-bat winged bobble jumper and threaten to make them wear that.