Constant detentions for skirt length

[Falcon1]

My DD is 13. Since starting year 8 she’s had weekly detentions for rolling up her skirt and has been on report. She was also on report twice last year for the same thing. I keep getting emails from the school about it, but really - what can I do? This last detention we’ve said enough is enough and have grounded her but she is entirely unbothered. Her take is that she wants to wear her skirt the way she likes it and will keep doing so, and that the teachers should stop being so obsessed with her legs being on display. I kind of agree to be honest, particularly as she is doing fine academically. But I worry she’s going to be in detention her whole school career and it’s making her hate the school.

any advice most gratefully received!

No, they don’t, but teens mature at different ages so sometimes need support if an issue persists as this seems to have done. If nothing else, sometimes it gives them a welcome ‘get out’ when they’d otherwise continue out of bloody-mindedness and not knowing how to reverse, having set out down a path.

Dropping dd1 at university for freshers week there basically was a uniform of tracksuit bottoms / jeans / strappy top and hoodie. Not a skirt in sight.

Sounds like you lack parenting skills so your child is unable to follow rules and has become a brat.

Get yourself some lessons before it’s too late.

I think China is very different, culturally.

Why is she so desperate to 'display' her legs?

How does she feel disrespected when she is the one disrespecting the school rules?

It's just immaturity really isn't it? If you were at work you wouldn't continue to have your arse hanging out your skirt if you were told to stop it. And she might not think her arse is on display but I bet it is when she's walking up stairs because unfortunately I've been flashed numerous times myself. @Greentulipriding obviously doesn't work in a secondary school.

Does she care about future prospects? Our local "good" college wouldn't give her a place with that many detentions.

That wouldn’t work! All the teenage girls round here tie their jumpers up round the back with a hairband (giving the jumper a little ponytail round the back) to make them tighter fitting. A baggy jumper is considered extremely crap taste. So they would just do that with the dresses making the skirt part really short.
Honestly teens will find a way to make the clothes the way they want.
so many other countries don’t focus on clothes at school. Teens just wear casual and comfortable clothes to school and it’s not a big deal.
They stare on in shock at our formal blazers and ties. 🤣

I have no problem with schools having rules about uniform and with them taking steps to enforce them but I bet that there aren’t many of us who in our senior school days didn’t try and bend the rules in some way. I know I did but once my mum got wind of the fact, I was careful not to be caught doing the same again
When teenagers leave the house most of them have free rein to adjust what they are wearing so that it’s more in tune with what is the fashion amongst their friends. It pains me to say it but I genuinely wonder if any of them have ever thought to have a practice run at home and seen what they look like in a mirror, especially if they are wearing socks not tights and their skirts are rolled up so high knickers are all but on show.
I can well understand why schools have rules about this. To my way of thinking it serves two purposes - one to stop issues like upskirting and the other to prevent girls looking ridiculous, which if we are all being honest a lot of them do.
As parents surely it has to be our job to provide guidance on what is and isn’t acceptable and supporting them to flout the rules, especially when they are made with safety in mind and to try and prevent ridicule for some isn’t doing them any favours in the long run.

Don’t ever visit Spain Spanish teens make ours look like nuns.

Leave it for the school to deal with. Years ago, schools didn't send parents emails about detentions. If you broke school rules, the school handled it. You've done your part by supplying her with skirts of an appropriate length. If she rolls them up at school, that's between her and the school.

I don't think teenage girls should be flashing their underwear, but I also think school uniform in general is a huge waste of time and energy. In the countries that don't have it, most young people wear comfortable clothes to school.

I have read some but not all of the thread and wanted to add (apols if others have said all this):

The reason @Falcon1 the school specifies a logoed skirt is not bc it wants to be annoying and charge parents extra; it’s so that it can be sure that all skirts comply with the school uniform rules – this is much harder to enforce if mere “guidelines” are given <speaks from experience>. So if your DD is rolling it up then school is going to continue to be unhappy.

Why the worry over length? Well @Greentulipriding who says they have never seen a girl in a too-short skirt clearly doesn’t see many teen girls walking to school in the morning. A student I pass most days on my way to work has a stretchy tube skirt so short that even she walks along pulling it down. Who wants their teen girls in skirts so short they show off the tops of their tights, or worse, their knickers? It’s not acceptable for teaching staff to have to look away as they walk up the stairs behind a girl in such a short skirt. As @Itdoesntmatteranyway says – male staff get accused when they confront a girl in a short skirt – but staff are trying to protect the students. Doing the right thing is part of education, I agree with @Makemineacosmo

She just wants to wear her skirt how she likes it!
Well she can’t, not at this school anyway. And as others say, when she starts working, she may wear a uniform, or have a dress code to abide by – and she needs to abide by it. Uniforms are worn in retail, service industries, hospitality, police, NHS, transport; and dress codes, such as no denim even if you want to wear it! no trainers, no sweary slogans, would all be standard in, for example, a school or a formal office.

Like what?
How is everyone having to have the same skirt length unfair or discrimination?

Yes, because the rule is - usually - no underwear on display. It applies to both sexes.

Of course they are conforming... that is the point! They are conforming in a mutual rebellion! Power in numbers!

Maybe I have a warped mind but I can see a way round that one that means we'd see far more than we want to. I hope no teenager would decide to manipulate the rules that way but I wouldn't put money on it. I can just picture it now, "Mary your knickers are showing, you know the rule." "OK Miss I'll just whip my knickers off."

Your options are that you a) accept the rules, b) move schools or c) make her wear trousers

The only other option is to continue as she is which is flouting the rules and getting detentions every day. And I think this is exhausting and detrimental to her learning

I disagree with extra punishment. So IF you decide to live with it, I’d email the home and say you’ve tried everything and will not be handing out extra punishment at school and will let her deal with it.

Yes, I think you have an overactive imagination.

Oh dear.
Strangely enough in my many, many years as a teacher, no teenager has ever said anything like that.
..........

Overactive is one word for it.

Same here. 30 years and counting.

Our local school has a knee length kilt as part of the uniform and yes up they go and it's arse cheeks to the wind.

It's always been known as the awkward age - adolescent girls are incredibly vulnerable to their own silliness and ignorance coupled with hormones screaming GET ME PREGNANT.

Compare with the local sixth form girls just a few years older - hoodies, baggy jeans, trackies.

Have you given her The Talk? About how vulnerable she is to predators who are drawn to underage girls? And how the intense pressures girls are under to sexualise benefit those men and harm girls?

Then there's the whole business of choices and decisions, and the consequences that follow on. The whole adult thing.

She makes those choices, carries out those acts, and then accepts the consequences. That's what being respected means - She's being given the chance to make her own choices, knowing and choosing to have those consequences.

She makes better choices, she's respected with the outcomes she'd prefer. That's part of the point of school, to learn how adulting works.

This pisses me off no end. Schools have uniform. We all know this and yet there's a constant fight against it. If it's not skirts, it's footwear or haircuts.

If your child doesn't want to wear a long skirt, that's something that should be factored in before picking a school. If you don't agree with their policy, go elsewhere. Tough shit.

If my child wants to go to a specific school then they are agreeing to abide by those rules. If they're then breaking them time and time again, that punishment spills over to home (as by this stage it's affecting me with the school constantly in contact) and I'm not putting up with it.

Give her trousers. If she goes behind your back then, she's breaking YOUR rules for her. Take her phone away. Ground her. No pocket money. Simple as that.

Who is the parent here? You or your daughter??