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!

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?

What do you mean 'what can you do?'

Plenty! You're her parent, act like it!

Take the damn thing off her, make her wear trousers. She isn't being disrespected. There is a dress code that she isn't following. At work, she would be let go for refusing to wear uniform properly.

Crack down hard at home, why the hell can't you control your own child? If mine kept getting detention for the same thing over and over again, I'd make it very clear that continuing would result in serious consequences at home.

But you and the school have given her the rationale - it's one of the school rules. And it's the same rule at most schools in this country. My child's school is the same. But there are ways to exercise your style and individuality. My girl wears wide leg trousers which look incredible. Barely anyone else does but she doesn't care. Most girls wear skinny trousers or roll their skirt. And they get detentions. My daughter would rather get to her sport training or come home and chill than sit in detention? Wouldn't yours? Try this sort of logic, surely she would rather do something more constructive than sit in detentions?

Ultimately you are the parent, if you let her defy every other school/societal rule then next thing you know she's littering, vandalising, shoplifting because 'everyone else does it' or 'I just wanted to'. Honestly I don't see why people won't just parent. Phone gone. Skirts gone. She will soon learn. But maybe I'm strict?! My kids don't seem to think so.

my not very tall y7 son is sick of going upstairs at school behind girls with skirts so short their arse cheeks are showing. These girls then call the boys behind them on the stairs ‘pedos’ which he finds upsetting as he absolutely does not want to see their knickers but can’t help it when the skirts are rolled so short.
the school are trying to address it and they have said they will change the policy to all trousers and no skirts if the girls don’t pack it in. will be interesting to see if that works but i’m not putting up with my son being called a pedo.

So many conversations where the parent says they cannot control their child’s skirt length. Well, she is 15 and it is an aged 8-9, so maybe start buying the right size. I've suggested culottes.

This is my era 😄
The skirts practically hobbled us. Some had back splits to the arse. Others had front splits up one thigh to crotch level.
Teenagers will always try to shock and force the issue. And (in my school at least) it wasn't unusual for girls to be collected from school by their much older, car-driving boyfriends or even have relationships with teachers. It was all pretty toxic with hindsight.

I mean I agree with you it’s not the end of the world, my 14 year old DD does this too, thankfully her school aren’t that bothered.
I agree with the trousers thing though - I’d give her a final warning, one more detention and the skirts go and it’s going to be trousers only.
Even if you think a school rule is silly she still needs to learn that she has to respect them

I really get how a teenage girl may disagree with a rule like this. She even has a point, skirt length should not matter. But it does matter. It’s also not just about this particular rule, is it? It’s about respecting rules in general: at work, school, the country you live in … the more you fight the rules, the harder things usually get. You don’t have to agree, but you do have to comply. Teach her to ‘choose your battles wisely’ …

I think that living round teens is just hard. Probably best let her keep doing the detentions. At least that way she is not coming out of school with all the other kids, so she's not getting an audience.

Single sex school - never rolled up my skirt.

Acceptable school clothing would be affordable for the parents and comfortable for the kids. Uniform is fine. If there were fewer rules around the type of shoes, the length of a skirt, the top button fastened, the need to keep jumper or blazer on when it's warm then more time could be spent on teaching and addressing actually harmful behaviour.

Teenagers rebel, they seek out injustice and arbitrary limits that's part of their nature. There's no need to pile on more restrictions that don't move the needle. Let's keep boundaries in place that are there for sensible reasons. Restrictions and rules that are worthy of respect and not simply because an authority figure says this is the way it should be.

The thing I find disgusting is the undercurrent of victim blaming I'm reading here.

No I don't have a son, I have a 14 year old DD who rolls her skirt up

The school has a uniform policy that you agreed to when you enrolled her there. It is the school uniform policy it's not for you or daughter to decide it doesn't apply to her.

Why don't you do some bloody parenting and tell if she gets another detention for rolling her skirt up she loses her phone for the week?

I wonder if this is part of the academy of schools in the hampshire area. The rationale is that she would have signed up to a set of values and behaviours when she joined the school. I assume this was the school she wanted to go to because her friends were going. Either way by virtue of the fact she is attending willingly she needs to comply with their rules.

yes we have all rolled our skirts up but I would hope young girls would understand that they do not have to display and showcase their bodies in this way to get attention, because that’s what the defiance boils down to.

if she feels the rule is antiquated then channel her defiance into putting an essay together to present to the school about why girls should be able to roll their skirts up or find a school that allows it. But at year 8 she is still a child and the school will expect you to support them.

It's definitely for the boys. Would be pointless otherwise.

Reminds me of our poor female cat who came into season once. She made quite a show of it for a week in our garden. The kittens were lovely, but the display required to get the kittens on the way was not dignified.

Yes, your stance seems to be in common with that of most parents.

FWIW I have a 15 year old son and he is totally oblivious. I don't think he could spot a girl from 20 feet. The girls are safe as houses around him.

Ok. Thank you for responding. I do wonder about parents who think it's ok for girls to wear these skirts and whether or not they would send their son to school in tight micro shorts.
I've been a teacher for a very long time, it's never been such an issue; I do think female sexualisation in clothing has become much more of a problem.

Yet another mother on here wringing her hands and saying "what can i do" Bloody parent her, make her life miserable until she learns to do as she is told. That is the job of a parent, to teach their child. Teach her that life has rules and laws that must be followed, if they aren't followed then there are consequences, no phone, no going out, no money. Why haven't you taught her to listen to her teachers? Stop beinng her friend and start being her parent.

I was stuck in traffic the other morning and watched a stream of girls walking along with skirts so short that arse cheeks and knickers were displayed with every step. It wasn't helped by the skirts being kilt style and pleated at the back, so that the pleats flipped up quite a bit as they walked.

I wasn't altogether shocked though, we did exactly the same when I was at secondary school in the late '60s. And I actually had a bit of a chuckle, as it was an independent school run by the same trust as the one I went to.

I don't understand why your daughter won't follow simple rules about uniform when everyone else does. It's not normal behaviour to continue in the face of repeated detentions. Maybe she's mistakenly got it into her head that it's personal? She sounds intelligent, so would probably benefit from some explanations - sorry if you've already done that! In your shoes, I would explain that the reasons are three-fold:

First, issues of preparing kids for the outside world, where they'll almost certainly be part of companies or organisations where there are rules. Also things like team spirit and being part of an organisation bigger than yourself. Secondly, that there are some men in the world who are attracted to children and we'd rather not draw their eye. Yes, we know that we should be able to wear whatever we want and not suffer any consequences, but that's not reality.

Thirdly, repeated detentions will leave a black mark on her record even if she does well in exams. Remember this: The school will give references to universities. Her making such a big issue of disobeying school rules makes her look extremely bad. Tell her that it makes her look as if she thinks she's too special to obey the rules that everyone else does, even if she doesn't think that at all.

I think the onus is on you as her parent to let her know how bad she's making herself look, that she won't get away with such things as an adult - she'll just get fired - and that she is risking a good school reference, whether that's for higher education or a job. If I was a teacher who was asked for a character reference for a job, I'd have to say that she's disobedient, has trouble following simple rules, and is not a team player. Not great, right?

She definitely sounds like the sort of kid who would benefit from knowing all the reasoning behind such rules.

She seems to have developed the idea that this is a personal battle between her and the teachers. Make her see that it's not, based on all the above.

Ha, ha, that's so true! My DH is older than me - we met when I was thirty, but I joke with him that I wish we'd met when I was 15 or thereabouts because it would have improved my street cred no end to be picked up by much older boyfriend in his car 😂

Actions have consequences. Parent your child.

I think you've got to leave this between her and the school.