School in Uniforms

The Benefits of School Uniforms

By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

My child's school just decided to require all students to wear school uniforms, and my son is obviously not happy. I'm torn over whether or not I think school uniforms are a good idea. I think they will help with some problems and put everyone on more of an equal ground, but I also worry that all of the kids will look the same and won't be able to express their individuality. What do you think about school uniforms?

Sincerely,

Mother of a Clone

Dear Mother of a Clone,

School uniforms are a great idea – not just because they support safety measures that allow gang members and other disrupters to be easily identified rather than blending in with students in "street wear," but because uniforms eliminate the premature sexualizing of our nation’s elementary school and middle school students as they are pressured to wear clothing that is revealing, tight, and sexually provocative in order to fit in with the cool crowd.

Malls and stores carry clothing as inappropriate for children as thongs in kid sizes and fashion magazines show models who are barely of age hawking back to school looks that belong back in the boudoir of a much more mature person – not on a child. Whether or not parents choose to believe reality, kids do fall to peer pressure at ages as young as nine and ten years old. These kids are bombarded with overly sexy images on the internet when they are doing research for homework, IM-ing their friends, or playing games. And television doesn’t help either, when Mary-Kate Olson, with whom these kids have all grown up with as a TV personality, after suffering from anorexia, was just offered a modeling job with Calvin Klein, sending the message to our girls that anorexia pays off.

Thank god for uniforms in which girls can relax about their bodies and not feel they have to be showing off their newest curves or that they are being judged by them. Teachers and principals don’t have to do the "reach test" that some California public schools have instituted, where students have to reach their hands over their heads and if their midriff shows or their boxers show (for girls or boys), they are required to don an extra large school logo tee shirt for the day or go home and change clothes. Is this really what we want to spend our tax dollars on? Policing bellies and boxers?

Give the kids the gift of uniforms and let them complain, but let them be safe – not just from gangs, but from peer pressure and early sexualizing; and let them feel relaxed about the way they look rather than competing for looks.

April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.

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