8yo girls must wear shorts under skirts...

[MyFirstMyLastMyEverythingBagel]

... In order to play on the bars in the school playground?!
My 8yo DD came home from school yesterday upset as she wasn't allowed to play on them - the teacher had said she needed to have shorts on as the boys would see her knickers.
I'm really upset by this, she is 8 years old and has a life time ahead of her to be worrying about modesty/body image without the school instilling it in her at 8. We've had a lovely summer, much of it spent splashing in the river / sea, DD totally in self aware in her knickers and a t shirt.
I'm actually pretty cross and plan to speak to the head about it, but want to know if iabu? How would you feel about it? My child is a child and I don't feel she should be made to feel self conscious about a brief knicker flash when she is playing.

My 6 year old daughter choses to wear shorts to school, although not part of the uniform. The school do allow trousers, so she has just adapted it.

I think it is a sensible idea to wear an extra layer under the dresses. Even just to give them an extra layer of physical protection (chafing when sliding down a pole/ on slide) even if some parents want children to children to be unconcerned about showing their underwear. However imho I think teaching children that their underwear is private and not for public display is essential...

There is no way on earth my DD3, 7, is going to wear her baggy, polyester football style school shorts under her pinafore or gingham dress if I have anything to do with it. If she isn't bothered by her pants showing when she does her gymnastics thing in the school grounds or local play park, then anybody else can gtf. If and when she is bothered, she can do something about it, and only then. FFS let's stop sexualising and shaming our children.

If they have to wear shorts underneath, why the actual fuck is the uniform for girls a skirt instead of trousers?

I'm another who grew up the 60s and 70s. I agree with Francis. We didn't have unifom in Primary , so we wore our very short little Summer dresses, or in Winter corduroy pinnies and thick tights, or warm trousers. Pants are quite enough to be comfortable and covered. Perhaps some pants now may be a bit more skimpy? My dd (9) wears standard classic shaped thick cotton pants, but she had some of the elasticated ruffle- edged ones as a present, and they are quite loose on her, so I can see if worn for cartwheels might move about a lot, but her standard pants are perfectly decent.
I did have to wear two pairs at high school though, I always assumed as much for the cold as for decency....one pair of normal white cotton briefs, with thick sweatshirt fabric knickers over the top, that we then wore for PE with an aertex shirt, and for games under a short pleated skirt. They were hideous, but cosy.

At secondary school many moons over thirty years ago we wore aertex shirts with gym shorts - thick, stretchy, hotpant style, for indoor activities. Outdoors we covered them with sweatshirt and short kilt for netball and hockey, and tracksuit for athletics.

Yesterday after school DD3 was hanging monkey style from the bars at the park play ground, bum in air. One of her wee boy pals smacked her bum and ran off, laughing. DD laughed too. Because bums are funny at that age. And that's all they are, nothing more.

Happily, at DD3's state primary school, she has the option of wearing gingham dress in summer, for the rest of the year, skirt, pinafore, trousers, shorts or culottes.

I mean the summer dress is an option, not a requirement iyswim.

Sorry not read the whole thread but I just wanted to mention that Asda do playsuits now that are available on their George website direct.asda.com/george/school/pinafores-dresses/girls-school-playsuit-grey/GEM470814,default,pd.html

When I was in late primary school they introduced this rule. It was a relief at the time as by then (year 5/6) a few boys had started making comments about the girls and one even used to drop a pencil under the table to have a look. The really sad thing is that we thought that was quite normal.

A friend of mine is a SW and when we were discussing this she said she thought it was a child protection precaution, and a good idea. Apparently a lot of primary aged boys (she didn't mention girls) have access/have accessed porn and there are increased incidents of sexualised behaviour in the playground

Grr rocky! Even if that's true in this school, the solution is to deal with the unwanted sexual behaviour, not the victims of it. It's a simple concept how can seemingly intelligent people fail to grasp it?

By P5 to 6 I seriously doubt that DD3 will still be happy to flash her knicks to the world. DDs 1 and 2 certainly weren't and by that age, had opted to wear school trousers. DD3 may also do so, in which case I have her sisters' old ones in storage for her, still in good condition. It's back to what I said previously - when she is bothered, she will stop, of her own volition. Until then I will continue to let her play, innocently and without shame.

BTW those playsuits look naff and uncomfortable IMO, but that's other people's choice. Just so long as it doesn't become: let's put little girls in these so we don't have to fret about them - horror- showing their pants occasionally when playing. Sod that.

Have you spoken to the school OP? I recently mentioned to my child's school that I was uncomfortable with boys and girls lining up separately and they stopped doing it. It can sometimes be good to flag these things up with the school.

What a ridiculous idea.

I would speak to the school about the uniform issue, and I would send my DD in wearing shorts and would encourage other parents to do the same. If the uniform is not suitable for the activities children can partake of on school premises, then the uniform needs to be revised. Girls should not have to modify their clothing 'in case someone sees their knickers'.

It's the 21st century for Gods sake. Inappropriate behaviour should be being addressed, we shouldn't be effectively 'shaming' children for being children.

On the contrary, Marklah, rather than making parents feel that they must put their daughters in shorts, we should be reminding school staff that generations of little girls have played happily in dresses, skirts or gymslips and knickers, without a care in the world, including myself, my mother, grandmothers etc., and the school staff should get a grip. It's a very slippery slope to go down when we feel that we "have" to cover our daughters up. Pants do that job perfectly well and expose no more than at a swimming pool or beach. Bollocks to this insidious "modesty" i.e. body shaming enforcement on our (mainly) female children. Bollocks to it.

What! What nonsense !!

YANBU

Absolutely ridiculous

As Pp said, knickers perfectly fine for prepubescent

Primary school girls should not feel they have to choose between either swinging and climbing and jumping and skipping or wearing a skirt or dress

That's backwards Beyond belief

Marklah girls being encouraged to wear shorts instead of a skirt as part of the school uniform is encouraging girls to modify their clothing in case someone sees their knickers

What concerns me most is that it is largely female head teachers and teachers introducing these ridiculous rules to body shame little girls. These are the very people who should be putting a positive spin on being female. They are role models to little girls.