School Dress Codes for Teens
Do you know the length of your daughter’s inseams? What about the width of her tank-top shoulders? Did you just buy her a cute new pair of leggings? If so, you might want to double check her school’s dress code.
School dress codes are growing stricter, and it’s easy to understand why. Styles are getting edgier by the minute, and we simply can’t allow our kids to go to school in their underwear. However, in many schools, popular apparel items such as denim shorts, tank tops and sandals have been banned, and some parents are questioning whether such intense rules are necessary.
Do Dress Codes Make Things Better for Kids?
In our culture, women experience an intense amount of body consciousness from a very young age. Dress-code supporters argue that stricter requirements help fight against the many unhealthy messages our young people are already burdened with in our society. Bikinis and skinny jeans are marketed to toddlers these days, and it’s growing more and more difficult to find clothing for teenage girls that isn’t designed to look sexy. Girls can be competitive, and that combined with the message that they are supposed to be “hot” creates an arena in which they strive to be the sexiest among their peers. Stricter dress codes may help remove this competition. However, it has also been pointed out that young girls with bigger breasts and hips are being targeted. Their curves make the skimpy clothing more distracting to young boys, but are they supposed to change because some people can’t keep their eyes to themselves? It’s important not to make developing young girls feel ashamed of their bodies, and that is exactly what many parents fear the dress codes will do.
Do we Control What Girls Wear or Tell Boys Not to Stare or teach them not to objectify?
Most would agree that young people don’t need to go to school dressed provocatively. It’s also important that they be taught to respect boundaries and treat each other like human beings. Schools and parents must work together to help young people understand how to dress appropriately. Attempting to enforce insanely strict dress codes isn’t the answer. It sends the message that the human body is something to be ashamed of. Instead, we have to teach kids that their bodies are neither a defining or limiting factor in their lives.
