SEAN IS SEVEN, and not particularly clothes conscious. But he was delighted when his mother Marian bought him a new pair of trousers to wear at Christmas, because they were a change from the track suits he normally has to wear. The trousers, a pair of soft cords from Adams, were labelled for age 11.

Like Sean, Alastair lives mostly in track suits, the only clothes that will easily fit him at age six, he is also wearing clothes sized for 10 and 11 year olds. His mother Mary is wearily familiar with the problems of finding nice clothes for a child much taller and bigger than average.

Of course, the idea that there is an average sized seven year old is no more sensible really than the notion that there is a standard 46 year old. (Although without shops like Marks & Spencers, which sells adult clothes in three different lengths, those of us who are wide but short would spend our lives brushing mud from our hems.)

But when it comes to clothing children, there are fewer choices of shops, styles and labels and by the time bigger than average children reach 10 and 11, they have to wear clothes sized for teens or adults, however inappropriate the style.

Both Mary and Marian would like to buy jeans for their sons but these are virtually out of the question the rigid waistbands of most brands of denims simply won't accommodate a bigger child's girth.

Clare had similar problems dressing her daughter Aoife when she was a pre teen. Like other parents of bigger children, she muddled through Aoife's childhood buying clothes sized for an older child. But by the time Aoife was 10 or 11, it was becoming a psychological as well as a practical problem.

"We'd go shopping and I'd always discreetly pick an older size outfit for her to try on but she became conscious of what I was doing and ask. Why wan't a size 10 fit, am I fat? Or Why do you always get things for me that are too long?"

The problem, of course, with buying older age clothes is that often, the cut is all wrong if you buy a pair of size 10 trousers and cut off the legs to suit your child's height, chances are the crotch won't fit. And although it is perhaps a little easier to dress a big "little girl" in loose dresses, they face a particular problem when they turn 10 or 11 often, the teenage styles that fit them are quite inappropriate even "tarty" says one mother for a child who is still truly a child.

Margriet Power, owner of the Hansel & Gretel children's shop in Sandycove, Co Dublin, is as surprised as many parents that Ireland's bigger children are so badly catered for. There are, after all, quite a lot of them it isn't only children who are overweight or "cuddly" as she prefers to call them who have trouble finding clothes to fit, it is children who are taller or bigger built than average. And in the nearly 20 years since she opened her shop, she believes that even the average Irish child has got bigger.

She does cater for the larger child, and in particular stocks a German label that has elastic waisted jeans for four to 16 year olds. They are more expensive than chain store denims those for a 10 year old would cost about £45 but are not too expensive, Power says, relative to the cost of Levis, for example.

This particular label has a range of clothes for bigger children, including elastic waisted skirts and "flattering, trendy, smartly designed dresses".

The benefits, she suggests, are clear "It means that a child can get something in his or her own size, and doesn't have the stigma of a 10 year old wearing 16 year old gear. The last thing children want is to be different.

THE PROBLEM OF finding clothes for larger pre teen boys could be eased if more retailers stocked trousers with elastic waists. Mary, Alastair's mother and a dressmaker herself, says the problem is that chain stores stop providing elastic waisted trousers at seven to eight year old sizes "because that's when little boys can do up their zips or buttons themselves".

Marks & Spencers does provide elasticated trousers up to an older age, but Marian finds the elastic is so rigid that the waistbands are still too tight for her son Sean.

Louise O'Brien, children's wear supervisor in Marks & Spencers in Dublin's Mary Street, says that the shop's children's wear range goes up to age 13/14 (except for school wear, which goes into ad tilt sizings). Ironically, it doesn't provide the varying lengths in children's clothes that it does in adult sizes, because it just couldn't accommodate this much different stock.

However O'Brien says, many of the shop's children's styles are miniature version of women's and men's clothes, both in style and patterns, so bigger children could wear some small adult sizes comfortably.

Roches Stores is a good place to look for young teenager styles quite a lot of 10 to 13 year olds fall into a black hole of being too big for children's clothes and too young for real teenager styles.

Another alternative, perhaps for special occasions, is to get an outfit made for your child, Mary says. "The price can be quite reasonable. Unfortunately very few people will make trousers.

Whatever you do, if your child is overweight as well as big in build, you must avoid giving him or her a complex about it. The very last thing you should do is to make comments like "you'd be great if you were only 10 pounds lighter", says psychologist Dermot Kavanagh, formerly with the eating disorders unit in St Francis Medical Centre in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, which specialises in children with eating problems.

Both he and Andrew Conway, senior child psychologist with the Mater Child Guidance Clinic, say that most Irish parents are quite sensible in handling overweight children indeed, most adults refuse to use the word "overweight" about children at all. And it probably won't be a problem if a child has a strong personality and strong parental support, says Conway. If not, a child can be set up for playground bullying.

Their key advice is to avoid diets "which don't work," Kavanagh says emphatically but to promote a healthy family eating pattern free of junk food, as well as lots of exercise and fresh air.

If you suspect that your child's weight is causing a health problem get your GP to check it out very discreetly. And since being overweight in children is closely tied in to self esteem, it is extra important to handle such children in a way that promotes their self esteem, to provide plenty of positive feedback and praise for their successes.