debate
Clothing question: How much individuality can parents tolerate?
Too casual? In France there is a debate about the introduction of school uniforms – here too there are supporters of dress codes in classrooms. photo
© Christian Charisius/dpa
There comes a time when children are no longer willing to put out their clothes for the day in the morning. In many families, the taste of the offspring is a source of fuel. Does a dress code in schools help?
Ripped jeans, bare midriff, bright colors – many parents have a problem with how their school children leave the house in the morning. Will my child offend, be laughed at, or possibly even ruin his reputation?
The Federal Parents’ Council has taken up these concerns and recommends that schools reach a consensus on a dress code. This should then be included in the house rules, said the chairwoman of the organization, Christiane Gotte, the newspapers of the Funke media group. The German Teachers’ Association is critical of the proposal.
France wants to test school uniforms
In neighboring France, school uniforms are even to be introduced on a test basis from autumn. Many people in the country think school uniforms are a good thing, others don’t, France’s Education Minister Gabriel Attal told broadcaster RTL at the start of the school year. The best way is to try out uniforms in schools. Germany is a long way from that, but there are always arguments about appropriate clothing in class.
“We’re not saying: every school has to have a dress code,” said Gotte from the Federal Parents’ Council to the German Press Agency. “But every school should discuss it internally – and if they then come to the conclusion that they don’t need a dress code, that’s completely fine with us. Even in that case, the parents would be much more relaxed because they would know what their children are wearing caused no offense.” Of course, there are also parents who are very open and support their child’s individuality.
If a school decides on a dress code, students, teachers and parents should work together to develop it democratically, according to the Federal Parents’ Council. From his point of view, the advantage would be that there would be a commitment and the teachers would have a way to send a child home to change clothes. “They don’t have that in many schools right now.” It’s mostly about “inappropriate, loose, torn or revealing clothing,” Gotte told the Funke newspapers.
Teachers’ Association: “School is not a beach”
The German Teachers’ Association takes a different view on the subject. “Finding a formulation that specifies how long a T-shirt can be is hardly possible,” said association president Stefan Düll to the Funke newspapers. It is a trend across society that clothing is becoming more casual. But it is also clear: “School is not a beach and not a club.”
The children and young people tried things out, sometimes it was an anti-attitude towards their parents, sometimes they simply adopted what they saw at home, Düll told the dpa. “If you create a dress code, then everyone has to participate, the entire school family including the parents.”
The chairwoman of the Federal Association for Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy (bkj) also wonders what such a dress code should look like. “That cannot be formulated,” says Inés Brock-Harder. “From a young person’s point of view, completely ripped jeans can be a high-quality piece of clothing. I think regulating this from an adult point of view is excessive and an unnecessary interference with young people’s fashion consciousness.” Clothing is a very individual issue, even for adults.
Demarcation is important
Brock-Harder says she understands that parents have certain concerns about what their children are wearing. “But it is completely normal and an important developmental task for young people to differentiate themselves from their parents, especially during puberty, and this also happens through clothing. A dress code would lead to even more conflicts rather than fewer arguments. Because it leads again to: Those up there decide something and we young people are the ones who suffer.”
The Federal Parents’ Council sees certain advantages in fixed clothing rules. “A dress code would make a lot of things easier for families in the morning, when it is already stressful, and remove a lot of conflict,” said chairwoman Gotte of the dpa. For her personally, sweatpants, for example, are not a piece of clothing to wear to school.
Teachers’ Association President Düll emphasized: “It is the job of parents to deal with their children; there has to be friction. And sometimes you suffer shipwreck.”