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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

Don't teenagers feel the cold?

95 replies

LynetteScavo · 12/01/2010 20:57

I've recently noticed the teenagers going to our local high school don't wear coats or hats or scarves, etc.

A few of them wear jumpers under their blazer, but many of them don't. And I bet almost anything they are not wearing vests under thier shirts.

So why don't they wear coats? Is it because their blazers are too bulky to wear a coat over the top, or are coats totally uncool, or do teenagers just not feel the cold? (TBH I don't remember ever feeling cold as a teenager, butI'm pretty sure I wore a coat to school)

What's this about then?

OP posts:
asdx2 · 13/01/2010 14:31

My dd is seriously uncool as she has gone each day in hat,scarf, gloves, woollen coat and wellies even though she was laughed at until her friends realised just how cold and wet they were getting. She prefers to carry her stuff round school and be warm on the mile and half trek there and back.
Funnily enough in the hot weather she was the only one wearing a dress, bare legs and ballet pumps when all her friends were wearing the regulation jeans and converse to sixth form.

Fizzylemonade · 13/01/2010 14:33

Our local secondary forbids coats in the classroom and the coat hooks and lockers are miles away from the some of the classrooms so they just don't wear coats.

PuppyMonkey · 13/01/2010 14:42

DD1 (aged 13) went out to walk half an hour to school in ballet pumps and a short bomber jacket as usual this am. Me and her dad just despair.

She reckons the jacket is a lot warmer than my big winter coat too. I can't convince her otherwise.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 13/01/2010 14:58

Up here, I reckon some of them get it from their mums - the younger WAG-wannabe mums, that is. Most of the women go for a night out in town all dolled up to the nines and don't want to hide their glitzy finery and orange legs underneath anything, they'd rather suffer. Underneath all the orange their skin is actually blue, you know. They seem to like tottering along in their 4 inch stilettos - actually probably quite handy in the ice, those spikes.

ADifferentMe · 13/01/2010 15:24

My DD1 got screamed at by her head of year a couple of years ago for wearing a coat over her blazer. I took great pleasure in phoning the school and reading them their own rules . She says the teacher has never forgiven her.

We live on the coast and it seems to be regarded as quite trendy to wear sailing jackets at DD2's school. Unfortunately they don't have lockers so she's been lugging wellies and jacket around from lesson to lesson.

My kids are far more sensible than I was , probably because we were only allowed scratchy green coats and leather gloves.

BrigitBigKnickers · 13/01/2010 15:37

DD (13) went out with a friend a few weeks ago (during the very coldest part of the recent snow temp was about -3)

She was wearing:
plimsolls
a sleeveless top
paper thin cardigan.

Stupid girl!

RamblingRosa · 13/01/2010 15:38

Don't any of you remember being like this as a teenager? There are many tales in my family of how I used to insist on trudging off in the snow to school wearing only a denim jacket. I hated coats. I thought they were so uncool.

wishingchair · 13/01/2010 15:49

I remember this. At 16 we'd go to a club in town in winter with no coat. Diamond White and hoping to see that boy I fancied was enough to keep me warm.

Come from up north though.

nappyaddict · 13/01/2010 15:56

I think it's disgusting that schools don't have lockers meaning that kids get bad backs cos they have to carry all their books around all day and freeze cos they have no where to put warm clothes. Maybe we should start a mumsnet campaign about it

mellifluouscauliflower · 13/01/2010 16:23

Last Saturday we went to the football and had a "Most Inappropriately Dressed Fan.." competition. We thought we might find an idiot or two who were too "cool" to wear a coat. (It was snowing and you do have to sit outside for at least 90 minutes. I think the bar shuts when the match is on..)

Actually there were hundreds of grown men without coats. Some just had chunky cardis. We also saw one in white plimsoles..My husband said he thought it was because celebs never wear coats.

I did stuff like that when I was young. So glad I am sad and comfortable and middle aged now!

stealthsquiggle · 13/01/2010 16:26

Rosa - that is going to be the problem when my DC are teenagers. I was a boring, uncool, not outwardly rebellious, swotty teenager. They will be appealing to DH and he would never let the truth get in the way of a good argument so there is no way he is going to admit any of the stupid things he did .

SexyDomesticatedDad · 13/01/2010 17:05

This is what some girls are wearing around our way!!

When I was at school we had cool RAF great coats.

GnocchiGnocchiWhosThere · 13/01/2010 18:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Jayfer · 13/01/2010 18:26

I saw a group of older teenagers at the weekend at the bus stop wearing tops, mini skirts and leopard print stilettos. I laughed so hard. I've spent the last few weeks tramping round with boots, vest and fleece with snowboarding jacking over the top. Not attractive but warm and practical.
The poor girls looked so miserable but it could be a cool type of 'pout' that's past me by.

JaynieB · 13/01/2010 18:29

My stepkids are both teenagers and won't wear a coat or hat to school. Part of the problem is lack of storage space at school, but I reckon the uncool factor is much stronger! They have access to lockers but 'lose' keys. I've provided SD with thermals and suggested she could wear them under the uniform and no-one would know she was wearing them and she'd feel warm - whether they will ever get worn is another matter

flyingmum · 13/01/2010 18:29

I saw an old bloke walking through the snow in his wellies and old bloke short shorts yesterday! Perhaps it is not just teenagers!

isoldeone · 13/01/2010 18:33

most state secondary schools don't have lockers as there is no room to put them anywhere but the main reason is that teenagers leave food to rot in them and they are freqently vandalised. i only worked in one where there was a few and students could hire them and had to put a deposit down and sign a contractsaying they would not store owt valuable or dodgy in them!

Inkpen · 13/01/2010 18:53

In my ds's school, the cool (ie warm) option is to wear a hoodie UNDER your blazer (which is allowed in cold weather). Scarf is allowed but not once in the school. They have lockers but if you put things in them, you have to remember to take them out ... so ds's locker is rather like my freezer - a one-way system ...

spiderlight · 13/01/2010 18:57

I recently encountered a lad of about 12 walking home from school in the snow, in a short-sleeved school polo shirt with nothing over it, eating an ice lolly

LittleWhiteWolf · 13/01/2010 19:03

I wore a coat every winter, but this was Germany and I would have frozen otherwise.

I wish I could be a teenager again...not because it was so great, but because now I have my head screwed on straight it could be great IYSWIM? Maybe its just me

Helen63 · 13/01/2010 19:36

I'm told by my (almost) teenager that she 'overheats' if she wears a coat when she goes out in the cold, wet snow. She also says she has to stay in the shower for 15 minutes as getting out would mean she would freeze... We have a radiator and underfloor heating in the bathroom - so the logic is... I have to work on this teenage logic...

GreenMonkies · 13/01/2010 20:26

I saw two mid-teenage girls walking through 3 inches or so of snow and slush wearing school uniforms, no coats, scarves, hats or gloves, and only ballet pumps and ankle socks!!!

For goodness sake.............

belgina · 13/01/2010 21:02

Sorry, haven't read the whole thread, but I don't get the there's nowhere to put them arguement. When I was at school (Belgium, with more sensible teens, I saw them wearing coats when I visited over xmas). Anyway when I was at school we used to hang coats over the back of our chair or on a peg outside the classroom and just carry it together with our bag, lunchbox and PE kit to the next room. Can't see the problem.

belgina · 13/01/2010 21:10

Just want to add that at the no storage space. All schools I've entered in Belgium have pegs outside the rooms.
As a teen I used to wear more clothes than I do now TBH we had no uniforms, but I always had tights and and socks under my jeans and a t-shirt under my jumper/blouse, nowadays I dont. I must have been more sensible back then

tispity · 13/01/2010 21:19

RamblingRosa - glad you asked that because i was going to otherwise. it is one of those unanswerable questions really