Teenager refusing to follow school rules on make-up and piercings

Are you deliberately misunderstanding?

We did not need to send our children to private school as we feel they are intelligent enough to succeed without it.

How can you possibly read that and think no wrote the opposite?

DH has an Oxford degree and a doctorate after attending a state comp, why would we want our children to go to a school with people like your DH who clearly needed to pay to try to succeed?

Options:

1. Give her a choice- either she follows the rules for the next year and after that she can go to a college with no dress code and wear as much make-up as she wants, or you put in the term's notice and at Christmas she'll start at state school and have 2 terms to get herself together to finish her GSCEs, possibly with different exam boards.
2. Take all her make-up away and say that if she can't wear it at only appropriate times, she can't wear it at all.
3. Leave her to it and let her face the school's disciplinary measures, up to and including exclusion.

FML what a huge bitch

My advice now would be to back the school up - those are the rules, not your rules, school rules,while listening to her and helping her understand the consequences etc. The school won't like it. You'll get into trouble. Rinse and repeat. Not your battle. Her battle.

Me and a friend got given eye makeup up remover to take off the black eye makeup up before the school photo. We dutifully went off and put more on and jumped in the photo at the last minute!

I wonder if the DD is aware of difference as she’s at private private. Some teens are very naive and probably think as long as mum pays £15,000 they won’t chuck me out.
If she’s at point of arguing publicly with teachers and daily emails home school could easily ask her to leave. She’s not bringing academics or sporting achievements to table by sound of it eg she’s not going to be newspaper as a girl who got 10 x A* holding up balloons. Schools are businesses and can very easily say no more. Especially if other parents are complaining eg they are paying for an hour history lesson, not 45 mins as 15 minutes spent with Miss arguing with DD about her lashes.

And I went to private school. Am now highly educated. Got good grades etc. But got told off for make up all the time. Ha. Teenage rebellion is not unhealthy. Normal part of life.

Lol I was not dissimilar. Empathise with her. School rules are annoying. Can you negotiate? You will let the make up go but no to the nose piercing? Fwiw I am now a professional with a well paid job. She's doing well otherwise. Let her be. Let her have the battle with the school. Listen to her. Negotiate.

Yes but this is a private school, which means they are free to impose any rules, regulations and standards they deem applicable.

The pay off for all the money you pay out to keep your child away from the hoi polloi in the local comprehensive and get all the benefits of private education, smaller classes, better behaved pupils, stricter discipline, extra curricular activities, etc. is that you and your children have to follow the rules of the school.

its hard to explain something like school rules to someone of that age, I know I did all I could to break the rules but now being a lot older, can see why the rules are in place.
She needs to understand she is jeopardising her future, if she gets suspended or expelled she wont be able to do her exams or follow the work for them. If that does not interest her future employees may be reluctant to employ her as she is a risk to them as regards toeing the line in the job.
no job no make up or false eyelashes

Nervous about public speaking? I don't think so, sister. Just minutes before, she was loftily berating all males as misogynistic beasts utterly sure of her point of view.
Nice try, though....👏

I work for the NHS, all kinds of makeup on
the face is allowed on frontline staff as are false lashes, tattoos & most above the neck piercings. Obviously we have to have bare nails as there’s a bare below the elbow policy for infection control.

In many careers & jobs nowadays, people are able to wear the makeup & style of their choosing.
So it is a little strange to me that schools are so strict with teenagers who are practically adults.
I went to a Comprehensive secondary school in the 90s & there were no rules on makeup plus the uniform rules weren’t especially restrictive.. it didn’t harm our education.. what harmed our education was the constant use of supply teachers & teachers not turning up to lessons, & certain pupils who were drug dealers intimidating others in lessons. Things which are probably still issues today, whether teens wear makeup or not.

What a strange assumption. Maybe (much more likely) she was nervous about public speaking, or didn't have much experience of debating in that sort of formal/public setting. Or maybe the reality of the real-world manifestations of misogyny (rape, sexual assault, violence against women and girls) hit her and she was too upset to talk about it. Or many other reasons. But your explanation is probably the least likely.

How dare grown ass adults try and bully and blackmail how other adults look. That's not normal

It's not blackmail either.

we had all sorts of batshit rules when I was at school. same as when I got my saturday jobs and then started my career - stuff like always washing your cup up at night before you go home.

What's batshit about cleaning up after yourself and maintaining a clean and tidy work environment? People don't want to be faced with a lot of festering coffee cups when they arrive at work in the morning. (I speak from experience of working in places where no-one washed their cups.)

That isn't true, there's no law that states under 16's can't be pierced. Some studio's will refuse though based on local authority regulations or their insurance.

I would focus on her self-esteem and how self-conscious she feels about her appearance. I felt exactly the same when I was her age and used makeup to cover my insecurities and boost my confidence. I remember people telling me to wear less, but the thought of taking it off made me really anxious because I genuinely believed I looked ugly without it. I argued with my parents and probably seemed defiant at times, but underneath it all was anxiety and a lot of worry about how I looked.

Right, but their parents aren't paying thousands of pounds a term for them to piss it up the wall because they care more about wearing false eyelashes than getting an education.

As for outgrowing school, you may be right but as the OP describes her sixteen year old DD as a "summer baby" she has to do another year somewhere. Private school is a waste of money for someone who has a bad attitude, no academic aspirations, and thinks the rules shouldn't apply to her.

Yes this. Speak to a beautician. My dd uses expensive lash serum and will have brow lamination and lash lift and tint as she’s off to work at a us summer camp and hasn’t time for makeup day to day there.
I’m sure you can find something that helps her confidence but doesn’t fall foul of rules.

Look into a lash lift and tint so it works using natural lashes. And scaling back to a good tinted moisturiser light concealer to achieve a no mskeup makeup look.

I watched a podcast recently, and a girl burst into tears and fled off camera because after accusing all men of misogyny, she was asked what the word actually meant. She couldn't answer, started crying, asked to go home, and ran off camera. It's probably the case that nobody's ever refused her anything or questioned anything, and she couldn't handle the real world.

Edited to add.

@SkyBlueCloudyLakes so what if its outdated? its the rule, follow it or go somewhere else. I dyed my hair when I had left school because it was the school rule that if you did then you either changed it or you left. simple, really really simple, easy to understand clear policy which I signed up to when I went to the school. people dont challenge it because 99% of the population realise that this is life - you have rules, you follow them or you work somewhere else.

its learning to follow rules that school is teaching you. and often because the snowflakey parents arent doing it. we had all sorts of batshit rules when I was at school. same as when I got my saturday jobs and then started my career - stuff like always washing your cup up at night before you go home. but thats the point of it. parents shouldnt push back on the rules because THEY signed up to them when they picked the school. change school or home ed if you dont like them, again really simple and straightforward in my view.

I'd be quite happy to be written out of the will then. How dare grown ass adults try and bully and blackmail how other adults look. That's not normal

I also don't like overly strict rules about uniform /piercings/make up

But if I had a daughter who was already a year behind her peers ( so can't afford to risk having to retake a year) and was at a private school where she was otherwise happy, and wasn't their star student academically, I would be telling her to just accept the rules till the end of year 11. Anything else is just idiocy right now. She just doesn't have enough on her side to take a "so what" approach.

Shock horror I actually agree with most of your post. And just to point out my post had nothing to do with inappropriate clothing or not following the school rules. It is about make up, hair dye and piercings. Huge percentage of people dye their hair and has more than one piercing. And I would like to claim majority of these people have a career. I do think this particular rule in a British schools is extremely outdated and as said in my previous post I am surprised more people do not challenge it.

@somanychristmaslights

i can’t think of any jobs where you’re not allowed to wear makeup if you want to