When my children were tiny, I didn't hold back. In time, I learned that for my daughter, that was not all right; for my son, it was. Different people, different ways of handling things. Now, my children are doing things right and making their own mistakes with their own children!
It is interesting that you bring up not wearing pants. When I wore dresses/skirts, I was ashamed. I felt so exposed whether i was a child, a teen, or a woman. Immediately after I left the church that demanded dresses/skirts only for women, the first thing I did was get rid of my skirts/dresses and buy pants.
I finally felt modest! Funny how we view things so differently! I guess I never understood how a dress/skirt, which exposes everything, which makes everything easily accessible, is modest. Even when I was in 8th grade in the Midwest U.S., only the loose girls wore dresses/skirts, yet I was forced to wear them because of my parents' religion. How embarrassing! Of course, that's just MY experience.