A Letter to the Parent Who Just Found Us

Hello. If you are reading this, there is a fair chance you got here the way most of our families do: late at night, after a difficult day, having typed something like "school trousers for larger child" into a search bar with a heavy heart.

So before anything else: welcome. Take your shoes off. You are among friends.

I started Sturdy Kids in 2006 because my own son could not find clothes that fitted, and because I was tired of watching his face in changing room mirrors. I remember exactly how it feels to be where you might be right now. The frustration with shops. The worry about September. The fierce, protective love for a child who deserves to feel great in their clothes, and the quiet anger that something so simple is so hard.

Here is what I want you to know.

Your child's body is not a problem. It never was. Clothing companies chose to cut for one template of child and ignore the rest. That is a design failure, not a child failure, and it is fixable. Fixing it is literally what we do all day.

You have not done anything wrong. I have spoken to thousands of parents over twenty years, and so many carry a guilt they never deserved. Feeding a family, raising a child, navigating health and genetics and life: you are doing your best in a world that loves to judge parents. There is no judgement here. There never will be.

Small things change big things. I have seen a pair of properly fitting trousers change a child's whole relationship with school mornings. I have seen a Velcro-adapted shirt give a seven year old her independence. I have seen a comfortable PE kit put a boy back on the football pitch. Clothes will not solve everything, but never underestimate what "comfortable and just like everyone else's" does for a child.

You are not on your own. Behind this shop is a community of parents, carers and grandparents who understand completely, because they live it too. The hard mornings, the playground comments, the wins that only another parent in your shoes would understand. Come and join us here. Bring the hard days as well as the good ones.

Have a look around the site. Measure your child when you get a quiet five minutes. Ring us if you are unsure about anything at all; the number is 01242 285 999 and the person who answers will get it.

And when those new clothes arrive and just fit, and your child pulls them on and runs off without a second thought, I hope you take a moment for yourself. You found the thing. You sorted it. You are doing brilliantly.

With love,

Vanessa x

Founder, Sturdy Kids