At what point do I really put my foot down and force my kids to start dressing differently?

My kids are 6.5 years old, but were held back so are in kindergarten now. I also have a younger child - 5 years old. My girls all look very similar, though they do not look identical.

The 3 girls want, or maybe I should say insist, on dressing the same every day. We inherit most of our clothes from my sister (who has twins + 1, so the sizes work out), and they match a lot, but they are all in different classes, so no one sees them in the same clothing. Slightly different situation than my kids, who are together all the time.

I have tried and tried to encourage them to pick different things to wear, but somewhere along the line they got the idea that if they dressed the same, people would actually look at their faces and learn to tell them apart rather than relying on their clothing. (Someone at church told them that, and they latched on.)

So at what age does it become just ridiculous to dress matching your siblings, to the point that it is worth the major fights I am going to have to go through to enforce this? Are we there yet? Or am I OK just letting it slide for a while longer, and then hoping they outgrow it?

BGG born 4/25/05 at 31w1d




New baby girl born 9/19/06