To not want DD to get suspended over a nose piercing?

[Helpmeplease123456]

She is year 11. She got her septum pierced at the beginning of this month (when she turned 16, she asked me previously and I said no. She said fine, I'll go when I'm 16 and don't need consent and she went with a friend a couple of days after her birthday. She has now had it a couple of weeks.

Her school have a ban on facial piercings, only one lobe piercing for each ear is allowed. She did know this and I did too, hence why I said I wasn't giving permission. Obviously I respect she doesn't need it now.

Her school (of course) noticed this the first day she showed up with it and are demanding she takes it out. I have had multiple phone calls about this, during which I've said short of physically yanking it out, there's nothing I can do. She's refusing to twist it up into her nose (which effectively hides it) and is complaining that the school aren't respecting her personal expression. On Monday the school basically said take it out or we'll put you into isolation until it comes out. She refused and has spent 4 days in isolation. (They let her out at lunchtime so she still sees her friends- she doesn't really see the isolation as a punishment i don't think. She likes the quiet time to do the learning without distraction.

I got a call today saying they're thinking of a fixed term suspension if it doesn't come out. Again, they seemed to be implying that I can make her take it out. I really don't want her to be suspended over a nose ring in such an important year but do I just have to accept there's nothing I can do?

Is she allowed to go on the gym equipment with it in?

It may be healthy but rewarding her with something she likes to get her out your hair is giving her a free pass to do what she likes because you want an easy life.

That's not me trying to sound harsh with it. We say the same things to staff who find they have repeates classroom issues but then don't use the policy and don't use strategies. The easy life only gets someone so far.

To be blunt about it: she is less than a year from the qualifications that she will carry with her for life. In 5 years time when she's looking at her options and seeing what her mates have achieved (because they were smart enough to do the teen rebellion and pushing uniform and knowing when to stop), is she going to look back and say "I'm really glad I've had to do 1-2 years at college redoing level 2 because my piercing is great. I'm so glad I had a few weeks at gymnastics because it worth being enabled to do what I like in y11"?

You are letting her get away with everything. Let her starve if she won’t make her own food. How will she function if she ever finds work? You really need to grow a pair.

I think you don't want to do anything because it is too hard.

Can’t wait to see this on FB U Ok Hun and Angry People in Local Newspapers! No doubt with ‘sad face’ pic.

Having a visible piercing shuts off a vast swathe of professions. Regardless of people’s wish to ‘not be sheep’ (the dreds/tattoos and piercings make people look as much the same as do the more conventional. It’s not big, or clever, it’s just a current fashion, much like the revolting slug brows or huge eyelashes).

The rules are there. Regardless if you agree with them or not. They are trying to instil discipline, which comes in handy when you hit something as an adult that requires a bit of self-discipline to work through. She’s got a lifetime to express herself, sanction hard OP. You’re currently enabling it, this shows by your rebuttal of all suggestions.

Does she take the thing out for gymnastics? If she does I’d take it. I’d also be banning the gymnastics and asking school to enforce isolation over lunch. School are being very tolerant. But they will reach their limit.

If you don’t take gymnastics away, you are letting her get away with this behaviour. Seems like it doesn’t actually bother you that much.

No WiFi, no phone calls, no laptop, library for revising, certainly no gymnastics and I'd tell her to forget about prom too.
Write a letter to HOY expressing your solidarity and agreement with school and give it to her to give in. Running bloody rings around you.

Good lord, the gymnastics wasn't cancelled after the cyber-bullying and still wasn't cancelled after the threat of suspension? And by the looks of it it won't be cancelled even after the suspension because it suits you to send her to it.

Why would you expect her to sort it out by Monday? What incentive has she been given to? It's quite clear your threats are toothless!

Oh ffs she needs to understand what will ACTUALLY happen in the real world when she doesn't have the safety net of home and mum to cushion her.

Frankly it sounds like you can't be arsed.

I get it. It's knackering, constantly resisting their behaviour and insisting on better. But do it you must.

No gymnastics. WiFi for 3 hours for homework only, in a communal room so you can see she's doing it. Phone sanctions. Bed by 11. Do that for 2 weeks and she'll work out that flipping her ring is the easier option.

Chipping to add you really do have to nip this in the bud NOW ( and tbh it's very nearly too late)
I had this with DS and DD, both several years emotionally younger than their ages, due to AT diagnoses.

I'm sorry to say OP but you are hindering more than you are helping. The way she behaved today was disgusting and if you don't do something drastic then I dread to think what might happen.

I was suspended for around 3 days back at the end of about year 9 I think for a nose piercing.

Sad to see the world hasn’t moved on.

I work for a bank. No one cares if you have piercings.

School clearly does. As do a lot of other jobs.

So let's count the number of adults who have seen fit to engage with this piece of teenage fun, and we can also try to estimate the amount of time the 'adults' have wasted on it. I don't count the OP among the 'adults' in quotation marks, only the teachers and school admin.

The OP finds herself caught in the middle of an incredibly silly battle of wills, fought by incredibly silly people who are all equally up themselves. Because of her age and immaturity the teenager is excused from responsibility here. The teachers and school administrators have no excuse whatsoever for their gobsmacking performance.

Here we go:
I got a phone call about half an hour after school starts to say she had entered school with it flipped up and has gone back to normal lessons.
1 (whoever phoned)

Her 3rd class teacher reported her.
+1

So she was sent down to the office for isolation and I got another phone call.
+1 (office staff)

I had to go in for a meeting after lunch and miss work.
+1 (and you were obv on the other end of the morning phone call)

Basically the headteacher and her head of year have said, she is not as of yet suspended, they really don't want to suspend her (don't think it looks great on their records) and as they think progress was made this morning when she flipped it up, they are giving her until Monday,
+2

..if she shows up on Monday with it in, I have to pick her up immediately, and she gets a fixed term suspension.

6 adults, assuming no duplication of effort.

I would estimate at least an hour of attention overall form the Year Head and HT.
10 minutes from whatever teacher took note and phoned in the morning.
10 minutes from the 3rd period teacher.
? from the office staff.

Maybe four hours of missed work by the OP so far (?) and more threatened, because the school thinks its ridiculous rules are more important than someone else's livelihood...

The school has completely lost sight of its function.

This is preposterous, and the comment that the HT and Head of Year are weighing how this looks on the school records speaks volumes about what this kerfuffle is really about.

No piercings isn’t really that daft of a rule when you think about the activities that take place in school, PE and tech both bring the risk of entrapment or the piercing being ripped out. Science and cooking classes bring their own risk, and then you’ve got the general rough and tumble of school and the risk of what 14 year old boys think is funny.

None of that was ever a problem in the high school my DCs all attended in the US, where many students had facial piercings, and all students did daily PE along with classes in all the subjects mentioned plus many more.

The school also took the policing of 14 year old boys' behaviour seriously.

And this apparently might not be a problem in a non-uniform 6th Form in the UK either..

Oh and also she lost her smartphone in late August as I found out she was involved in cyberbullying. As in going along with people being mean to a poor girl in her class.

And that's what schools' insistence on conformity gets you...

Presumably the school clamped down hard on all the perpetrators of the bullying?

Or are they only interested in students engaging in non-conforming behaviour?

Mathanxiety uk high schools are known to have ridiculously strict uniform rules. They just do. The problem here is that the OPs daughter has decided that the rules shouldn’t apply to her. Why exactly?

There are many arguments as to why there should be less strict - though personally the need to wear a blazer at all times would be the first to go. But this is not the way

OP your daughter sounds awful and entitled. This is not the way to win an argument

math
Much as I can see you have an issue with uniforms, I'm not convinced you can argue that the OP's child and her friends being involved in nasty bullying is caused by school rules.
I'm yet to work in any school that hasn't had bullying and if any head told me bullying doesn't happen then I would question if they really know what's going on. The issue is how it is dealt with.

There are many arguments for and against uniform, but the fact of the matter is it is irrelevant here. The OP's child is, by the OP's admission, stubborn and used to doing what she wants, she's bullied other students and thinks rules don't apply to her. She is arrogant enough to think school shouldn't sanction her and that by going to try press to try and shame the school she'll get her own way.
Unfortunately that sort of attitude and behaviour is down to the person and what they've been allowed to get away with (for example still allowing gymnastics because it's easier for mum), not the fact school have said they can't have facial piercings

And that's what schools' insistence on conformity gets you...

What crap. Children are naturally conformist. It’s a survival strategy. As they mature they find socially “risk-free” strategies to express their individuality, which is what the OP’s child is trying to do. But going along with bullying is something children do because it is natural for children to try to fit in. It’s horrible, but nothing to do with anything anyone has taught them to do.

I understand that - just pointing out to people claiming there must be some health and safety element to the rule that thousands of American high schools don't bat an eye at piercings because they are not a H&S issue.

My advice to the OP would be to use this opportunity to show the DD that she has her back, that she values the DD's education, and encourages critical thinking. She needs to look into online coursework. The mother-daughter relationship stands to be strengthened by means of a dialogue on this issue, and she may also find out what has caused the DD to kick over the traces like this (something the school really should be doing too but heyho).

If the OP wishes, she herself could point out to the school that cyber bullying has taken place and that the school clearly has bigger issues than nose piercings that it needs to deal with, prioritising student welfare instead of school image.

(Is anyone else feeling slightly queasy every time someone mentions flipping it up inside her nose? Just me then.)

But mathanxiety it’s not about a nose piercing it’s about a child who doesn’t think the rules apply to them whose entitled attitude is clear from the posts here.

Unless handled now she could easily become a bully.

The nose piercing and strict uniform rules are primarily driven by the idea of conformity stopping bullying. No one is picked upon because they are different.

This isn’t about critical thinking or questioning whether the about is correct and the leeway within it though is it. She isn’t Greta Thunberg fighting a cause that is important so the rules are worth bending

This is about a girl who believes the rules don’t apply to her, who is being pandered to by her mum and teachers because presumably they are frightened a little of her response because they don’t have her under control

If the OP wishes, she herself could point out to the school that cyber bullying has taken place and that the school clearly has bigger issues than nose piercings that it needs to deal with, prioritising student welfare instead of school image.

Are you fucking serious? I bet your children are absolute little bastards, when their parent has an attitude like this. I bet the school absolutely adores you.

Life is really quite simple. Wear the uniform, don't cyberbully, avoid sticking rings in your nose until after you graduate. That's not such a big ask of a person. If you can't cope with that, then life is really going to be pretty fucked up.