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!

The skirt has to be the school skirt with logo etc. Plus, if I just took it away and got her trousers, she would just source her own skirt and get changed at a friends house before school - I know her. And she is not spoilt. She is lovely and kind, does all her homework and chores without any nagging and is doing well in every other aspect. She just wants to wear her skirt how she likes it!

There is a problem in schools with misogyny. The pressure on girls to conform behaviourally is huge. And the stock response is obviously to say the person challenging is inappropriate for looking. Because that is an easy deflection. And people who don't know the extent of the issue will support that. But it's schools trying to address a culture which is damaging for girls.

Honestly I would leave her to it.

Ask her what she's trying to achieve. Does she think she's going to look "cool"? (She isn't, she will look like a twit). Does she genuinely want to change the uniform rule? If so, there's better ways to go about it. Or is she just being defiantly for the saje if it as she's a teenager and that's what they are programmed to do.

Shes old enough to realise actions have consequences and there are reasons behind rules even if they seem stupid.

So she’s just very childish. Such a fixation on getting one over everyone over a skirt!

I suppose it depends on if you care or not - if you care about supporting the school, if you care about her wasting her time in detentions, if you care about her giving creeps and perverts what they want, if you care that she might she showing her arse to kids and adults, if you care that that might actually be quite unpleasant for others around her, if you care about preparing her for the adult world where she won’t always get to wear or do what she wants.

“Disrespected at school” 😂

What has she done to earn respect? Bloody ridiculous 🙄

She feels disrespected at school? That’s a bit Vicky Pollard! She is dirsrespecting the teachers and the rules. You could tell her that keeping this rule will not harm her and that she’s free to dress as she likes at home.

The culture that is damaging for girls is that which tells them that the best way for them to dress is by exposing as much flesh as possible. Right from a very young age - look at the difference between girls and boys shorts, for example.

Framing this as misogyny is doing the patriarchy’s work for them.

Don't be so wet.

Take the skirts, buy her trousers, tell her clearly that it's only trousers she wears now because regular detentions are entirely unacceptable and she can't be trusted with a skirt - and hammer home that she doesn't get to choose which rules to abide by.

If she directly defied me and 'sourced her own skirt' then she wouldn't be seeing the light of day for a month.

The thing is, when she starts working she’ll find she has to abide by uniform or clothes regulations, most places have this. You also have to follow rules and behave in certain ways so you don’t get sacked. Part of school is learning this, imagine if she was a nurse and rolled up her skirt at work, or in a bank, airplane, school, all these types of jobs you need to follow clothing rules, so school uniform helps to realise you can’t break rules.
with regard to treated with respect, again, at work, doesn’t always happen, so it’s a learning curve that perhaps you need to help school in still in her

This. Who’s in charge here, DD or you and the school?

The culture that is damaging for girls is that which tells them that the best way for them to dress is by exposing as much flesh as possible

Then we agree.

Omg stop controlling what girls and women wear and shaming them for what they wear. Nobody should be whinging about the length of skirts. Why do you care. Nobody wears them unacceptably short, never seen that.

No, men don't wear short skirts or skirts because of their anatomy such as their genitals would be on display then dangling to their thighs.

After this update, it appears you have no control over her.

she’ll disrespect your rules about the skirt if you provide trousers and instead override what rules you have put in place by getting changed when you’re out of sight?

that’s not a “lovely” kid

i wish all schools would ban skirts, I’m seeing too many arses on the school run every morning.

Nip this in the bud now OP, I can pretty much imagine exactly what the teachers will be saying about her amongst each other and it won’t be endearing at all. Once a pupil gains a reputation for being disobedient with an attitude they quickly lose the goodwill of the teaching staff which often tends to impact their academic chances.

She needs to understand life is full of arbitrary rules that we may indeed disagree with but must still follow out of respect of the institutions that set them.

Exactly this! Whatever she/you think, that is the school rules and in life you have to follow rules. I would be saying the skirts will be going in the bin and you'll be wearing trousers if this happens again

Framing this as “controlling what girls wear” and “shaming” is doing the work of creeps, perverts and the patriarchy for them. I’m not in the business of facilitating those men. You must do you, of course, though why you would I can’t think.

So let her get endless detentions. Hopefully she will get the message eventually.
Disengage from the battle and she will get bored with it.
" Mum,I got another detention today!"
" ok. I'm doing spag bol for dinner. Be ready in an hour"

In life she’ll have to do things she doesn’t want to do. What happens if she chooses a profession with a uniform? They’re the school rules and she needs to follow them.

Deal with the perverts then, girls and women should be free to wear what they want.

No you'll be the first one to defend the perverts especially the worst ones we all know which.

I was doing this 20 years ago. The detentions wouldn’t have deterred me either. Sorry it’s an uphill battle op

Perhaps turn it round - she says the school are obsessed with her legs, but can she answer why she’s so obsessed with displaying her thighs? She says she likes wearing the skirt that way and is arguing the school needs to justify why it has to be unrolled. But before you can argue for her, she needs to explain why she likes wearing th skirt that way.

why does she feel it’s so important her thighs are uncovered?

How important is this to her? Would she be prepared to move schools away from her friends to a school with less stringent dress code?

it might be worth checking your school’s behaviour policy, many academies and free schools have adopted policies that say after a certain number of detentions/negative behaviour incidents in an academic year, even if the incidents are minor, they can start the procedure to permanently exclude a student. If so, you need to spell out to your dd what she’s risking.

And if a rational conversation doesn’t work, I’d remove the skirts and just provide trousers.

You haven’t seen the girls at my local school. Skirts so short that when they sit down, their knickers much be touching the seat. Grim.

Surely you and Dd knew the school uniform policy before you decided to send her there?. She either obeys the policy, or find another school that allows very short skirts. If students can’t obey the rules, then they’re not going to get far in their adult life. Companies, armed forces etc have uniforms-sometimes the greater good of the organisation is more important that individuals who feel ‘disrespected’ for not having to do what everyone else is doing.

Your daughter reminded me of my older sister. She was often brought back from school to change as her skirt was inappropriately short. A teacher visited to discuss it a few time, but my mum couldn't do anything! She really tried and thought she'd got somewhere only to find out she got changed into a (lyrca mini) short skirt on her way to school. My sister was punished so much, she hated school and failed all her exams. She was a stubborn and defiant person, still is actually. You can't do anything apart from talk to her and explain that she shouldn't reveal herself so much as some men aren't nice and it will attract them. Sister was groped quite often on the school bus home, used to punch them and wonder why. Im not saying all women who get groped it's due to their clothing at all. Ive been groped by an old man wearing my frumpy uniform with long skirt. I'm not victim blaming at all and I wish we could all walk around naked and nothing bad ever happened. But that's not the case, some men are predators and it's best not to encourage them.