JO HAYWOOD discovers that buying clothes for tiddlers, toddlers,tweenies and teens is child's play this season.

BOYS are scruffy little devils. And in the spirit of even-handedness and honesty, girls are too. They can't help it. They are kids and kids are supposed to be grubby and a bit raggy round the edges.

Be honest, aren't you just a tiny bit suspicious of a child who is clean and shiny? If their hair is neatly combed, their shirt well and truly tucked in and there is not so much as a spot to be seen on their starched slacks with the knife-edge crease, don't the words "Midwitch" and "Cuckoo" pop into your head?

Ordinary kids, the type most of us have cluttering up our living rooms, are just not genetically programmed to be presentable. Their hair never lies flat, not even if you apply superglue and a swimming cap; their shirt is usually a fetching shade of grubby grey and has half its buttons missing; and their trousers, well, let's just say you could feed a family of rodents for a week on the splats of food that cling to every crease and leave it at that.

So why not just let them get on with it? Why try to make them into mini versions of yourself, with their mini-me haircuts and their mini-me clothes? Children are not normal people - have you seen them eat, for goodness sake? - so why waste your time, your energy and your hard-earned money trying to make them look like the rest of us?

In recent years, the design industry has encouraged parents to dress their tots in nothing less than teeny-tiny adult clothes. If Becks is wearing trousers baggy enough for him, Victoria and the kids, then so is little Johnny. And if Britney is wearing a top so small she needs a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers to remove it from her wardrobe, then so is little Jenny.

But the tide appears to be turning this season, with a noticeable return to children's clothes that look as if they were designed with children in mind.

Pink is well and truly back for girls. Not that it has been away. It has just been resting uncomfortably for a few years on the shoulders of six going on 26-year-old girls in goosebump-revealing crop tops and spaghetti-strap dresses (exactly when did spaghetti straps become more popular than spaghetti hoops?).

Now, however, pink is back in a more traditional way. But this doesn't mean frills and ruffles - heaven forbid. Instead we are talking about pink corduroy dungarees or pink jeans, loads of pink T-shirts and enough stripy pink jumpers to sink Barbie's battleship.

And if you just can't think pink, think ladybird red instead. It's light, it's bright and it's fun to wear, which is what children's clothes should be all about.

For boys, you really can't go wrong with a pair of dark jeans, a sporty T-shirt or a retro lumberjack shirt in jazzy checks and a fleece. Then all you have to do is tip them into some trendy trainers and let the inevitable carnage begin.

And whatever you do, don't worry if their shoes get scuffed, their jeans start to fray and their sweaters go all baggy.

Clothes don't last for ever, and neither does childhood.

Updated: 09:06 Tuesday, September 02, 2003