Dress up
Dressing up is really two decisions at once: who to be, and what to let other people see. The visual steps below separate those choices so your child can pause between them and think without losing the whole game.
♂Boy dressing up
A happy boy dressed as a wizard with a purple hat, blue cape, and a toy sword in his hand, surrounded by confetti.
About this visual support
A costume is not mainly fabric, it is a social position. The child who puts on the pirate eyepatch is announcing who they want to be right now, and every audience — the birthday party, preschool, grandparents — comes with a verdict in their eyes. Plenty of children want to dress up at home but freeze in the hallway when they realise the neighbours might see.
Visual support does not remove that exposure, but it makes the process digestible by splitting it. The cards first show choosing the character, then putting on the costume, then looking in the mirror, and only at the end the decision to walk out wearing it. Between each step the child can pause and change their mind without the whole game collapsing. It becomes obvious that you can be a princess in the bedroom without also having to be a princess in the lift.
A tip that helps: give the mirror moment its own card. Your child knows there will be a quiet stretch to look at themselves before any audience joins. The sequence can live in Routined so the same path is ready next time a costume party comes around — fourteen days free to try.