Weathering the cold is cool for many teens, tweens

NEW YORK | Among the great spectacles of winter, along with the northern lights and frozen lakes, are coatless children.

No coat, no gloves? No prob.

These teens and tweens are chillin’ out, literally and figuratively, in their sweat shirts and kicks. Maybe a boy will accessorize with a baseball cap, and a girl might choose stylish boots — but nothing weatherproof, please. Some boys even wear shorts year-round, and many parents say they’ve given up the fight.

Jack Rogers, 12, of Fishers, Ind., was wearing shorts last week. “I know lots of kids who do that,” he said.

His grandma doesn’t understand. “It’s 15 degrees. Why doesn’t he have a coat on him?” she asked.

Jack Rogers, 12, and his brother Maxwell, 9, enjoy the snowfall in Fishers, Ind., last week. Jack said he knows “lots of kids” who dress light in winter. “Coats are just a hassle, putting it all on. It makes me bulky.” he says. (Shelley Rogers Landes via Associated Press)

“I told her, ‘I have to pick and choose my battles,’” recalled Jack’s mother, Shelley Rogers Landes. “I need to let him make decisions that really are inconsequential at the end of the day.”

In a telephone interview, Jack explained his reasons for dressing light in winter: “Coats are just a hassle, putting it all on. It makes me bulky. I just like to be in short sleeves.”

He doesn’t mind gloves, but boots? “Nah, I don’t like ‘em.” If his sneakers get wet, he said, “it doesn’t really bother me.”

Carleton Kendrick of Millis, Mass., a family therapist, said that for teens, “wearing bulky winter coats, gloves, boots — unless teen girls consider them high fashion — and hats screams nerd, geek, baby, dork … uncool.”

He added: “Short of real and present danger of your teens getting frostbite, let them deal with being cold to be cool.”

Autumn O'Bryan said she was shocked, after moving to New Hampshire from Los Angeles, to see “both girls and boys with sweat shirts and sneakers in a blizzard waiting for their bus. I even saw a couple of boys with short-sleeve shirts. The only hats were baseball hats and no gloves or boots on anyone.”

Ms. O'Bryan had been fighting with her son about wearing a coat, but “after that I gave up and have never brought it up again.”

In Alaska, of course, the dangers of frostbite and hypothermia are real. “Our teenagers are the same as everyone else’s — they think they’re Superman, they’re invincible — but our weather is different,” said Shelby Nelson, a spokeswoman for Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

She said local media, schools, police and other officials work to get the message out to children that dressing warmly is a matter of safety. Even a car ride can turn deadly if you break down and have to walk a mile in 20-below-zero temperatures.

Dr. Art Strauss, an emergency room physician at Fairbanks Memorial, said that in places with milder weather, parents need not worry as much as they do in Alaska.

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