To be concerned my DD may be a target in secondary school.

[Autumnishere202]

I am on this parents group, old school group on social media which I don’t really interact with but often the posts come up on my newsfeed.

before September there was a lot of posts about schools bags / trainers for secondary school children and some of the adults comments were so sad it seems there was very short list of acceptable type of school bags etc
if someone spoke about getting something different it was commented “ no way would I sent them to secondary school in that etc “

now the Xmas posts are appearing and for the age ranging from 10 years old to 13 all the suggestions the comments almost seem copy and pasted the same reel of brands / items over and over again.

My daughter ( 11) starts secondary school next September she is not in to any of it !!!! 🤣 she’s mt first going to secondary.
she has no interest what so ever in a lot of what is being suggested.
she had a very specific like and everything is based on that.
she will not grow out of it any time soon
she doesn’t care about Nike trainers / Stanley cups or white fox hoodies actually she doesn’t care about names at all.
I suggested a Stanley last Xmas and she was like why you going to spent 35.00 on a cup.
so I didn’t because she was clearly not interested.
she’s not in to doing hair or make up ( well she is but more SFX makeup )
the way the comments from grown adults has me concerned 🙈

She honestly could not care less what others wear haha she pays no attention to shoes someone is wearing
I mean not to judge girls for actually liking and being interested in fashion, brands, trends. Live and let live, liking mainstream fashion is fine as is not liking it. Neither is culturally or morally superior or inferior, people like different things that's ok..

Most secondary schools have limited opportunities for branded stuff. School shoes at all 3 secondary schools my dc have gone to have had to have no obvious label (so no DMs or Kickers) and couldn’t be trainer style either. No handbag type school bags, just black rucksacks (I drove past a couple of times before they started, noticed Nike/ underarmour/ adidas bags so bought a cheap one of those brands in plain black- none of my dc cared which). Trainers- cheap Nike so as not to attract attention for PE once a week. Coats- I avoided bright colours and bought outdoor brands- cheap, practical and surprisingly socially acceptable.
Outside of school, the people she will see will be the ones who like her for her, so brands won’t matter. My (popular) DD and her friends were always quite cynical about the “popular girls” who were into brands and makeup and little else!

I think your daughter sounds wonderful. Happy and confident in her own skin. Continue to encourage her to be herself.

This! Ignore competitive mums, don't give them the headspace. 😁 Not worth the anxiety.

she will not grow out of it any time soon
she doesn’t care about Nike trainers / Stanley cups or white fox hoodies actually she doesn’t care about names at all
I suggested a Stanley last Xmas and she was like why you going to spent 35.00 on a cup

She sounds ace, like she's got her head screwed on!
If she gets there and everyone actually is being competitive and it's not just mums, encourage her to enjoy being herself and not go with what everyone else is just because she thinks she should.
Embrace being you and individuality

I have identical twins. One had a white fox sweater (I’m pretty sure it’s a fake) and Nike everything. Nike bag was a big thing - it’s like they’ve just added to the uniform as they all have the same. The other twin is bohemian in her style and not interested in Nike. She loves colours and had a bright yellow superdry bag for years 7 and 8, plus yellow puffer type coat. The kids round school played yellow car with her (which actually she found hilarious and made her popular with older dc). She’s now gone for darker colours and has a dark navy bag with more subtle rainbow colour trim. Not Nike. She occasionally gets teased by “the dumb group of kids” but she’s not bothered and has a great group of friends.

My dc went to quite a posh grammar school.Anything branded was banned, but any 'labels' were regarded as chav!

Fascinating to see so many judgmental and snobby posts happily putting young girls down for their personal choices on a thread where OP is worried that her dd will be a target for sticking with her personal choices🤔😂So it's ok to be 'different' but it's not ok to be mainstream? Why can't girls just be accepted for who they are, whether they love branded items or don't notice them. Like.... look beyond what meets the eye?

Where we live it’s all about not showing the brand! Boys go for the plastic bag from JD sports as their PE bag!! Recent ski trip they all had stuff from decathlon.

Some areas it isn’t about the label - there may be a small group that care but majority don’t! The boys all wear plain T-shirts (usually black or white)

My daughter was chuffed with her £6 primary version of the Stanley cup!

Exactly. People have been supportive of the OP and her daughter - as have I - but there's the usual snobbery towards mainstream kids who DO like the brands.
Each to their own.

My son's not into brands. All his t shirts and jumpers reflect his particular hobby. And he lived in tracksuit bottoms until this year (year 9). He's got an awesome group of friends and I think is just oblivious to the pressure to have a particular cup or pair of shoes.

Your daughter has the maturity and good sense to just roll her eyes at anyone who has a dig about her preferred brand of anything. I'd support her in that. Good for her.

The fact that anyone would waste £35 on a water bottle just shows their own insecurities. They are creating the fashion victims of the future.

My ds is the same. He couldn't care less about brands. I've no idea what make his trainers are, he chose them because they fit well. His rucksack was £15 from sports direct. Still in one piece after a year.

Enjoy your lovely intelligent daughter. She won't be the one getting herself in a credit card mess in a few years, chasing the latest must-have.

My DD is similar OP, she's in y11 now. She is extremely quiet at school and has no interest in fashion. She has some nice friends and has not had any particular trouble beyond the usual small number of teens being annoying.

At a big secondary school there will be such a mix of kids there, including other autistic children. Your DD is likely to meet others she has lots in common with.

My nephew is the same, he seems so young compared to others his age (although he is the youngest in his school year)…..not really into football or gaming, or the latest films etc, very happy still building Lego towns and riding his bike in the woods. I do worry for him starting high school next year but hope he finds his gang.

Mine is like this- never into brands etc happy in a charity shop.

I bought her some Amazon in ear headphones that were £20 she has long hair and everyone was talking about her apple ear phones and telling her how cool she was - she looked at them like meh 🫤.

I am not into big brands myself and my dd likes low key clothes over large logos. But, I have little tolerance for sneery, snobby behaviour especially when grown women act like that about teen girls. I know some women who behave like this and they call themselves feminists too. They have a blind spot towards their own deep seated misogyny. Women sneering at young girls is immature and extremely unpleasant. It's like they haven't grown past the disappointments they experienced during their own teenage years and are projecting.

Don't be ridiculous, I liked brands as a teen, I wanted all the latest trainers, coats etc. Believe it or not I'm now 35 and haven't got myself in to massive debt to keep up with what teenage girls are wearing. It's important to some kids and you don't have to be so condescending about it.

Mother of a boy, now an adult but here’s my perspective looking back. In secondary there were popular and try hard kids who very much had specific kit and every trendy logo. There were plenty who didn’t buy into the logo approach. Avoiding a ‘roadman’ look was thing for him.

The ubiquitous Adidas backpack was such a problem one year because nearly everyone had the same bag. After about 8 weeks they all gradually started getting different ones because of coming home with other peoples bags by accident

My oldest sounds very much like your daughter op. I try to keep an eye on what the youngsters are wearing when I’m out and about for work and get him things that are fashionable as he is a lovely looking boy and I want him to look and feel his best but he really could not care less. I could hand him a donkey costume in the morning and he would put it on and go to school no question.

He only agreed to upgrade his years old phone when it gave up and stopped working His younger brother is the opposite and “needs” all of the trainers. Some dc are a bit quirky, some will follow the crowd. They’re all just doing their best.

She sounds very much like my youngest OP - although DD2 doesn't have CP, she has ASD inattentive ADHD and dyspraxia so effective she managed to fall UP the stairs. Knows her own mind, doesn't care about brands, if it's not Pokemon or Minecraft she's not interested and she seemed terrifyingly young-natured starting secondary compared to her streetwise brand-obsessed older sibling.

She started in September and she's loving it - we picked a smaller mainstream secondary with a good reputation for SEND and a very active SEN base and a key worker system - and she's loving it - she can go hang around in learning support on break times if she's finding it hard socially, but she's not tended to need to (although she's discovered they have loom bands so is suddenly spending more time in there) and she's made a couple of friends for the first time in a long time!

Added bonus that the school run a Pokemon lunchtime club - her eyes nearly popped out when she saw that notice on a school open evening!

I think you need to opt out of this group chat. You need to model for your dd how to confidently be her own person.

My dd is in secondary and does not have any of the things that you’ve listed (nor do most of her friends). She is popular and well liked and has no issues. This sounds like a lot of parents projecting their insecurities onto their children (probably parents who have too much time on their hands and are spending too much of it on TikTok 🙄).

I agree. It's made me think though!

In my teens a group of kids used to harass us and call us names for not looking the 'right' way, throw stones at us and even beat my friend up because they didn't like his t shirt.

It was stressful and bewildering and sometimes quite scary. Over time you can get quite defensive and angry about this, and start to judge people for their mainstream fashion choices in response.

Clearly not everyone who likes mainstream fashion is an abusive dick, but all of the abuse I had as a neurodiverse teen with a strong interest in alternative clothes, music etc was from people who were 'mainstream'. (It's kind of like how it's Not All Men who harass women, but it's pretty much always men.)

Sometimes teenagers can be brutal. It honestly took me a while of being an adult to stop being extremely wary of 'fashionable' people.

@mimblewimble that sounds awful and I can understand how someone would become bitter about this sort of thing. I rarely wore any branded items as my parents thought they were too expensive and frivolous and I remember feeling less than at times in comparison to friends who could wear some of these clothes. This was in the 90s. One thing to consider, before being so dismissive of teen girls trying to fit in or being a bit try hard, is that these girls are likely feeling insecure. Insecurity and being a teen girl go hand in hand. Teen girls can be try hard, insecure, feisty, trying to fit in, rebelling against and trying to figure it all out. As a parent I'd try and steer them gently away from too much branded stuff just so they don't come to rely on this for their self worth but I wouldn't put down a young girl for wearing brands if they like the clothes and feel good about themselves. But I have no problem with getting them the rucksack or trainers they want, it's lovely to feel happy with your clothes and accessories.

She will find her tribe.
My autistic daughter is now in y8 and she is into anime and manga and Japan
She is still friends with her primary friends who are into skincare and make up and shite but she has new friends who share her interests

my school has no uniform so wearing anime tshirts from uniqlo helped find friends - but if you have a uniform maybe add relevant keyrings to the backpack - it's what all the kids do - and have an anime pencil case and so on...

Good luck!

Yeah 90s with frugal parents here too. I actually loved being a teen in the 90s! But not sure diversity etc was dealt with that well...

I totally get that most teens are just doing their best to get through school etc - some may really love fashion, others wear things to try to fit in, and that can mean fitting in with the mainstream or fitting in with their particular peer group. Most are trying to figure out their identity whilst avoid getting picked on or whatever. The teenagers I know through my two are all lovely!

Your daughter sounds fab! One of the perks of going from primary to secondary school is that it widens up your potential friendship circle. She’ll find her own gang with shared interests and hopefully a wider range of acceptable school bags! 😂