Got a kid who doesn’t seem to feel the cold?
Got a kid who doesn’t seem to feel the cold and insists on wearing shorts on cold days? Then this is for you …
I’m pretty sure my five-year-old son is a ‘chionophile’.
You see, my little guy doesn’t feel the cold … It could be zero degrees outside and he’ll fair dinkum argue with me that shorts are a perfectly good clothing option that day.
As for wearing his school jumper on chilly mornings, I can guarantee he’ll strip it off as soon as I’ve left the school gates. Then, when he arrives home of an afternoon, within about five seconds of entering the house, he’ll have discarded literally every item of clothing from his body.
Putting a warm coat on him is like wrestling with a crocodile, and don’t even get me started on his weird aversion to wearing socks!
My husband and I used to giggle about him being a born nudist but now, in the grips of the coldest months of the year, we’re no longer laughing. The struggle is real, people.
Is my nagging insistence that my son rug-up against cold weather justified? Why is it so important that kids are dressed warmly in winter, even when they’re adamant they don’t feel cold at all? Are we all being overly-zealous or is there something in it?
Cold bodies must work harder
Despite many thinking we can catch a cold or flu when not dressed warmly, Kidspot’s resident GP Dr Sam Hay insists this is simply not true. Going to bed with wet hair in winter is also another one.
Children enjoy an accelerated metabolic rate, which may explain why they don’t seem to be affected by cooler weather.
But while he may not feel it, those cold little hands and feet indicate that their bodies are working extra hard at keeping their essential organs warm. To do this, warm blood needs to be diverted from the limbs to the brain and chest.
This physiological reaction forces their bodies to work extra hard and expels lots of energy, which would otherwise be used to learn, grow and move. Which goes to show that if we want our kids to continue to thrive through the winter months, we must keep their little bodies warm!
Stay warm, stay well
There’s a very good reason why ‘the common cold’ has cold in its title … While colds have long been associated with chilly weather, researchers have recently found evidence that cold weather creates the perfect environment for the common cold to manifest itself in the body.
Scientists studied how a mouse-adapted cold virus fared in rodent lungs and nasal cavities and found that when a virus invaded warmer cells, the host cells produced significantly more interferons, which are proteins that ‘interfere’ with the spread of a virus by warning healthy cells of its presence and setting off an immune response.
As a result, they determined that Rhinoviruses, the most common cause for colds, reproduce most effectively at temperatures just below the body’s 37 degrees Celsius. Which means keeping your child warm in winter will go some way towards keeping them healthy!
Warming incentives
I’m feeling encouraged by some significant wins I’ve had lately in tricking convincing my chionophile to stay warm this winter, which I share here in the hope that you too can temper your own child’s reluctance to dress warm:
1. Allow your child to have some control over their winter wardrobe
While winter school uniforms are non-negotiable, give your child the opportunity to have some input into which clothes he can wear to bed, after school and on weekends. Take him shopping and give him a range of (warm) options that are colourful, fun and cool.
Your child’s clothing choices may not necessarily reflect your own fashion tastes but if they love them – and actually wear them – you can count it as a parenting win.
2. Pack warm clothes anyway
It may feel like a complete waste of your time to pack a warm coat in her school bag when you know she’s not going to wear it. But you may be surprised – like I was – by the influence her peers can have over her choices. If everyone else is wearing a coat, she will too!
Teachers and carers will also work to reinforce the importance of dressing warmly – they have your back!
3. Let them suffer the consequences
Then there’s the tough love approach … If all else fails, let nature take its course. Perhaps he’s the kind of kid who needs to learn from experience and suffering through a miserable cold will give you the opportunity to say, ‘I told you so’.
This way, he may finally understand why you keep banging on about wearing warmer
