To tell her school that they can deal with it if they have an issue? Re uniform rules

[ThatAdeptFish]

dd is 16 and has recently gotten highlights in her natural brown hair so it’s more of a blonde now. She asked me to pay for her to have it done a while back, I said we didn’t have the money but she’s recently gotten a job and spent her first pay check on getting it done. I thought her natural hair looked nice but what she’s had done does look nice too. Doesn’t look natural as such, you can tell it’s been highlighted but it’s still a normal colour, it’s not like she’s dyed it pink or anything.

Anyway, school rules say only natural hair colours are allowed, I did tell her that before she had it done but she said that the school don’t care and other people have highlighted hair and no one says anything.

well I have had no less than 4 phone calls from the school about her hair in the past 2 weeks, saying that school rules don’t allow it and she’s refusing to dye it back so can I please talk to her and make sure she dyed it back.

I did talk to her in fairness, and she said that the school are just being ridiculous and she’s not dying it back after she spent money getting it done. School have said she will have detentions until it is dyed back. She’s in year 12 if that makes a difference, she said that they’re stricter with lower school but in sixth form they don’t really care too much, well at least that’s what she told me.

AIBU to tell the school that if they have a problem with her hair, they can give her detentions, use whatever sanctions they use, but to leave me out of it from now on? She’s 16, she has a job, I literally have no power to make her dye her hair back, she’s not a small child, and she can deal with the consequences if she doesn’t do what the school have asked, but realistically I don’t know what they want me to do about it? In every other way she’s great, she helps around the house, does her homework, goes to her job, and I really don’t consider her hair to be worth picking a fight with her over.

My hair looks like that naturally.

Has done since I was about 14 and puberty made my white blonde hair go darker! Sunshine makes it even more highlighted and I'm often asked where I get it done!

I'd have been screwed in school in the 21st century.

Luckily I went to school in the 80/90's where there were rules but teachers were allowed to raise an eyebrow or ask for compliance without involving our parents or punishment.

Tell them that's her natural colour, but she's be dying it for years. She suddenly realised she was in breech of the rules and has now rectified the situation.

I am square and academic and have square and academic kids who went through school without hair dye or challenging authority. But goodness I defend the right for kids to experiment and dye their hair etc.

I would support purple and red hair too. It doesn’t affect education and after the first few glances, it’s no longer a distraction.

My kids said that the teachers the students respected least were also the ones who were sticklers for pointless rules…

Their policy is pretty clear and your DD hasn’t actually fallen foul of it as her hair is still ‘of a natural colour.’ I’d be arguing with them about their policy tbh, it’s not as if the policy is unclear about colours. Blonde highlights is a natural colour. Not DDs, but it is.

I can also see how the rule could be interpreted like this, TBH.

Blonde, auburn etc are"natural" colours - even if not her natural colour.

Scarlet, green, blue, pink, purple, bleached etc are not.

And as you say, you can't physically drag her to the hairdressers and get it "dyed back". TBH - you can't get it "dyed back" anyway - applying another colour to imitate her natural hair colour is also "dyed" hair.

I do sympathise with the school though - if you let one pupil get away with changing her hair colour, where do you draw the line. I think the rule perhaps should be clearer.

As you say, she will have to accept the consequences of repeated detentions.

She can use them to do homework/ revise etc. She may benefit from it.

Edited for aberrant capital letter in the middle of a word

It's hypocritical for them to expect the teenagers to not express themselves when I bet there is hardly a teacher there who doesn't have hair dyed, nails done, make up on etc!

She's in year 12 and getting this much shit over some highlights!?!

If only schools had bigger things to worry about.

Fuck sake, she's in Y12!
The school is clearly a fantastic one if this is all they have to worry about.
Personally I'd do as already suggested and say this is her colouring. Absolutely ridiculous.

My friends daughter did the same at 16. She decided to shave her head, the school tried (and failed) to expel her for “defiance “.

School are being unreasonable. She already has a part time job and will soon be entering the world of full time jobs. Workplaces now are far more relaxed about what people look like. My large employer asks that people dress appropriately for the workplace I.e nothing offensive but if you wanna dye your hair purple shave half of it and cover yourself in tatoos you are welcome to. Be your true authentic self is the catchphrase of the moment. Schools having these draconian rules are no longer a true reflection of 'adult' life. Some of the TAs in our infant school have mad coloured hair facial piercings etc. Nobody is bothered.

I agree. In year 11 I did the same thing. Sure the school kicked off about it for a while and I had to serve a detention, but after a couple of weeks they backed down. School rules were stricter then (1970s) but it's about picking the battles really isn't it.

I work in a school and I am a big advocate for following the rules BUT on this occasion I think the school is being utterly pathetic. I would tell them that their statement 'must be of a natural colour' is ambiguous and open to misinterpretation and that it would be fair to conclude dying her hair blue or green or pink would be 'unnatural', whereas the colour she has chosen is a natural shade which is entirely acceptable based on their aforementioned statement. On this basis, tell them that you will not be entering into further discussions and you absolutely WILL NOT support their decision to put your daughter into detention. She sounds like a good kid with a great work ethic and she should be praised for this, not sanctioned over something so trivial .

Agreed

Absolutely ridiculous . Half the female population has highlighted hair . I’m with your daughter on this one .

If they call again I’d just say her hair is a natural colour, blonde and brown. The rules don’t prohibit dyeing hair so she has complied with the rules as written.

I think I’d offer them a complimentary session on achieving clarity in [legal] drafting and hope they don’t call again.

If her hair looks like this then I'd encourage her to WRITE to the head of sixth form and state that her hair is of a natural colour as per the school policy so issuing endless sanctions is unfair.

My 8 year old daughter has hair similar to this but it's natural. She is blond but it also has lots of dark streaks in it.

So your daughter might be able to find cases of natural streaked hair to support her cause. Then, if there are others with dyed hair she should use these as support too.

(I teach in a secondary school and send home kids who flaunt the uniform rules but I'd say this is within the rules)

How about spray hair color? I'm in the US and beauty stores here have spray on brown that she could use during the week.

Or you could tell the school that it is natural.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Glad to hear it.

I’m a stickler for rules! I hate rule breakers.
I don’t allow my kids to do highlights/piercings/makeup etc. and….
I don’t consider this a problem. The wording is open to interpretation and the picture looks perfectly acceptable to me. Your dd doesn’t care about the consequences anyway so just ignore! The school are being stupid over this

I'd ask her to tie it into a ponytail as the highlights will not be as noticeable.

Yanbu. And I say that as a teacher who has pink hair (actually it’s currently blue). She’s old enough to decide whether she wants to dye it back to conform to their bullshit rules, or take the consequences of detention. I know which I’d choose, as I completely disagree with the outdated notion that the colour of our hair has anything to do with our education

I'm more at a place issuing detentions to 6th form age students. Does this seriously happen? And do they actually go? I'd have thought the lecturers were taking the piss if they tried that when I was 16 and doing A levels.

I think you should be standing up for your dd and supporting her, she hasn't broken the rules and shouldn't be getting any detentions!

I’d tell the school to fuck off, as someone pointed out, it’s not going to be her natural hair colour if they dye it back? Makes no sense whatsoever! If it was pink then yes fair enough but ffs!