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

[IcarusFallingDown]

Any suggestions (if any) for a rebellious teenager who doesn’t care about school rules?

My DD is 16, very well behaved in other areas (doesn’t drink, vape, go out late). Generally respectful at home apart from some teenage strops.

She has a real disregard for school rules. They aren’t allowed to wear makeup or false eye lashes at school, today she was asked to remove both, and told the teacher she won’t be doing so, neither now or in the future. We’ve also had a conversation at home and she’s repeated the same to me. I’m getting daily emails from school about makeup and eye lashes, I email the school saying I will discuss this with her, but I am not sure what else I am able to do?

She’s now decided she’s getting a lip piercing, which is against school policy, but again says the same and that she doesn’t care what the school says or does. I’ve told her I do not sanction this and she’s making life incredibly difficult, it will likely result in detentions from the school and emails home, but she just says she isn’t bothered and wants to express her individuality.

Has anybody been through this with their teenager? My eldest is a boy and was fastidious about school rules so I haven’t experienced this before, I’m sure it is common.

This is one of the downsides of choosing a private school which works for her other needs but which have extreme rules. You do not learn less well if you have make up on.
Maybe it needs a multi pronged approach.
Speak to the school, talk about her confidence issues to them, ask for time to work on it. Do they have a counselling service? If so use it. Involve her in some meetings, at sixteen she should be being encouraged to take steps towards independence.
Talk to her in detail about the possible consequences of continuing to rebel, having to move school, reducing her chances of doing well at exams which reduces her next step options. She only has to get through a year, break that down to days and find a way of marking them off.
Get her whatever help is needed in tackling the underlying feeling of being unattractive. From what you have said the routine of putting on her face might be soothing in itself. Either the ritual or the mask she creates may be props to help her face the world.
We are not far off the long summer holiday, alongside any other things can you encourage her to have no make up days? To develop a skincare routine without make up? To move towards less make up gradually?
If all else fails can you argue that this is a necessary adaptation for her ND?

Make up/lashes and piercings are perfectly acceptable in business/work places

But are they appropriate in Yr 10, which is where this girl is? Some Yr 10s will still be only 14. Should 14yos have piercings and false lashes?

(And piercings won't be appropriate in all workplaces, for safety reasons.)

I wouldn't give this much headspace TBH. I would calmly emphasise that if part of any education/work community one will usually need to make compromises about appearance and leave it at that. She can deal with the detentions etc. A parent doubling down and confiscating stuff is likely to further entrench a teenager's position, and will damage your relationship with her unnecessarily.

I agree as well that I would offer to pay for the facial piercing on the understanding that she waits until the end of YR11 - I did this with my elder DC (septum) and have the same understanding with my younger DC (eyebrow), and this worked as they're both a bit tight.

Mumsnet
"Kids today are absolutely feral and have no discipline, the schools have to do something".
School
"OK we're suspending your child for not following the school rules that you signed up to when she started here"
Mumsnet
"It's not fair the school are making my child unhappy with their stupid rules"...

I would ask the school what they propose to do if she continues e.g. would they expell her? Then I would explain to your daughter that all groups/workplaces etc have rules for inclusion, spoken and unspoken and that if she continues she will meet the natural consequences (whatever the school said they would do) and that you won't step in to prevent that happening since she has chosen this. Then invite her to think carefully about what that might mean for her and consider whether false eyelashes are more important.

If the school has no limit (i.e. no real consequences for not following the rule) then I would be saying to the school that maybe they need one since a clever student like your daughter has figured that out. Where she perhaps is not quite so clever is that often bending the rules is tolerated whereas defiantly opposing them becomes a stand off which the school can't afford to lose. But maybe she wants to try on the identify of the rebel?

She sounds fine though, testing the limits which is pretty normal teenage behaviour.

It makes a difference because the school have rules and choose to enforce them.
The parent chose to put their child in a private school and pay a lot of money for all the benefits of that - smaller classes, more individual tuition, better behaved classmates, more sports, more extra curricular activities, etc.
The flipside of that is that the school has "standards" and "rules" about how the pupils behave including how they dress. Now these rules and standards may be out of step with the times but they are nonetheless what the parent signed up to for their child and seemed quite happy with, right up until it affected their child.

She either has to comply with the rules of school or go to a college that has different rules.

She has a right to express her individuality but an organization has a right to set its own rules and standards.

So she has to choose which of these two things matters more to her.

I went to school in a New Labour progressive school with a hippy headteacher who liked children expressing themselves so this sort of thing was not only allowed but in fact the norm. It was the height of emo/goth/scene kid culture in the 00s so loads of us had excessive make up, crazy coloured hair and indeed facial piercings.

I got my first lip piercing at 13 behind my mum’s back, she went ballistic but I refused to remove it. I then got another on the other side - “snake bites” and followed this up with nose rings on either side, septum ring, a bridge piercing, more lip piercings, my neck, wrist and even my nipple! Totally against the law but I went to same piercer who I think just thought it was Christmas when I walked in…

My school was like Lord of the Flies. Not directly linked to the fact we could (and did) walk around with rainbow coloured hair but I don’t think it helped. Uniform rules like this help them adapt to the real world. Sure, businesses can’t discriminate except they absolutely do. Very few are hiring the person with pink hair and facial piercings.

Could being held back a year have something to do with her low self esteem? I have two summer born DS’s and both have thrived and have been fine.
My 16 year old is just finishing GCSE’s and is very ready to move on, over the last 6 months he has really developed in maturity I imagine he would really struggle if he was only just about to start GCSE’s watching people his age progress.

I do agree with posters saying maybe another school or college for GCSE’s so your DD can be somewhere she feels she can be more herself with less strict rules.

It doesn't have to be such a stark binary. It's not either 100% comply or 100% rebel. She needs to explore ways to work within the system to get what she wants.

The most successful people I've known in life are not the ones who always stayed within the boundaries because "rules are rules and that's life". They're the ones who studied the set-up, worked out which rules they could bend or circumvent, and managed to game the system to their advantage.

Not easy, but a useful skill to have.

She is restless. And possibly should not have been kept back a year. She could have been leaving school by now and I think in her head has already done so.
She is now one of the oldest in her class as opposed to the youngest.

I don’t think you can stop her wearing makeup and the lip piercing. She is rebelling against being at school. And the rules that go with it.

Private schools will be a more particular about how their school is seen. And how the pupils are. They are the walking living breathing advert for it. And if prospective parents ( or other parents who are already paying for their children to go there) see her with makeup, see a lip piercing, the school may be concerned on the impact of that on them. And on other pupils. And largely their reputation. The idea they won’t decide to part company with her is not so wild.
But a way to go yet.

If she wants to go to college she needs the qualifications to do so. But she will need to realise that college will not be like school. It won’t be like a private college. She won’t have the attention from teachers she gets at school, and she might find that a bit of a shock. She wants to be grown up but is cocooned a bit in an exclusive environment.

I might be tempted to take her to the college for a day or so. If they would agree to it. To sit in on a class to see what it would be like.

I took this approach to rules and didn't follow all the rules at secondary (eg I refused to wear the proper uniform), but I suspect I got away with it because I was on track for top grades and they needed me for their league table results. Ops daughter can't afford to gamble as it doesn't sound like she's going to get stellar results and she can't afford to retake the year if she's chucked out as she's already a year behind where she should be

Good for her. Schools are wild for expecting young women not to wear makeup for no good reason other than “it’s the rules”. If she later choose to work in a profession where it’s important to maintain a sterile environment so makeup isn’t allowed, then that’s different, but I’ve always rejected silly rules which only exist to exert power and control, and it’s always served me well.

Totally. Sounds like OP agrees with her DD and saying she has issues with self esteem is like a trump card for her to do whatever she likes.

I would say she is not allowed to go to school until she complies with their rules.

To which the reply would be "You signed up to this when you paid the fees, if you feel that your child would be better in a different environment then you are free to move them. However, if they wish to stay at St Cake's then they have to follow the rules the same as all the other pupils".

No you cannot get any body piercings under the age of 16 without parental consent. They have to be with the minor when they attend. Over 16 they must produce ID. Should she consider tattoos, under 18s are not allowed in tattoo parlours, its illegal to tattoo miners

This ⬆️

Edit.

read updates, so another year at school.

She may end up excluded, is that what she wants?

What do you think she would do if the school eventually said if she refuses to comply with school rules they would have no alternative other than to ask her to leave. The trouble is despite the fact your daughter is ND if they allowed one pupil to wear piercings, makeup & false eyelashes they would have to scrap the rules in that respect & have a free for all which would never happen.

There's a comment on here about nail techs making small money. Tell that to Daisy Kalnina at The gelbottle who's personal fortune is £70m in ten years!
However I do think it's worth having a good business education behind you. A' level business studies would be a good shout if your daughter wants to be self employed.

She was held back a year, so she should be in yr11, but is actually in yr10.

This ^ .

OP you sound incredibly soft with her... "I've told her I do not sanction this"? That's not parenting, that's telling her do as you wish but the consequence isn't my problem. She's 15, you can't let her ruin her education because she's insecure about her looks. You've got to be firm, not allow access to money for the piercing and confiscate make up if needs be.

Inform DD that you will help enforce the rules and that if she gets a lip piecing she will lose her phone. Remove her make up and eye lahes only allowing them back for social outings if she promises not to wear them for school.

Follow through with whatever you say are the consequences. And use whatever discipline measures that matter to her.
Mean business.

Also spend more time with DD. Take her and one law abiding friend out to cimema or shopping, fishing or camping regularly.
Complement her make up when xhe goes out socially but do not give in to her plan for lip piecings and make up for school.

Take DD to the dentist for a check up and ask dentist's view on getting a lip piecing when she leaves school. (Not good for teeth)

Quite. Op has chosen to send her daughter to private school. Unless she picked a particularly progressive one - and it doesn't sound like she has - then her and her DD are stuck with the rules they signed up to.

That said, if her DD wants to go into the beauty industry she surely has the skills and inclination to learn how to apply natural make up well, so that it is not detectable