Article posted Wednesday, April 9, 2014 12:21pm

Dear Mary Pat,

My daughter is a strong-willed ten-year-old, who has an interesting sense of fashion: clashing colors, lop-sided pigtails, summer dresses worn over baggy jeans.

I want her to express herself, to be who she wants to be, but sometimes she looks like a homeless child who just wandered in off the streets.

I worry teachers and fellow parents might think I don’t provide for her properly or slack on my parenting.

Any suggestions?

Signed,

Fashion Faux Pas

Sturgeon Bay, WI

Dear Fashion Faux Pas,

I would hope there is a broad line between letting your child express her creativity and having authorities called in for potential neglect. That being said, I don’t think clashing colors and unorthodox pigtails are really cause for alarm. You can always discuss it with your daughter’s teachers to make sure she isn’t violating any school dress codes. And it doesn’t sound like she is dressing to old, or too provocatively, for her age.

Sometimes giving children more freedom is just the thing to reign them back in. When I was in junior high, I was allowed to wear make up “sparingly” to school. When I got in the car one morning, my mom told me that I had too much eye make-up on and that it looked ridiculous. I rolled my eyes and told her that it looked good, pretty confident that I knew much more than my mom about these sorts of things. She most likely let me get away with it based on needing enough time to get to school and didn’t say another word. When I walked into my first class, a boy asked me if I was from the moon and starting laughing. I guess my heavy hand with electric blue and silver Cover Girl eye shadow didn’t quite convey the look I was going for.

I learned from that moment on that I should always take a final critical look in the mirror before heading out the door and that more often than not, parents do know what they are talking about.

Maybe this is a phase your daughter is going through, or maybe not. If you let go of the embarrassment factor, then you can really decide if her outfits are really that out of line.

Good luck,

Mary Pat