Dressed to Kill

I was the last class in my high school to have to wear dresses every day. I don't remember ever minding wearing nice outfits. In fact, I remember instead enjoying getting all decked out and matching all my outfits with the perfect accessories.

When I went off to college in the late sixties and early seventies, I was just as happy to wear the uniform of the day--jeans and tee shirts or peasant blouses, but we still knew to dress up for work or social gatherings.

Today, even jeans and tee shirts are not casual enough for kids. They want to wear jeans with holes or pants that hang down below their rears. I actually had to send a kid to the office because the holes in her pants were big enough for storing small animals.

Now, normally I don't look very closely at what my students wear, but I do know that when the school outlawed the above, their behavior changed. When they stopped looking like trash, they stopped acting like it.

What would happen if there wasn't a school dress code? Well I shudder to think about it. Even with one, the girls try hard to wear shirts that expose all their charms--too tight and too low, and dresses that just are below their rears, but most of the faculty is vigilant, even if the parents must be wearing blinders in the morning before their progeny walks out the door to go to school--sometimes still in their pajamas!

What happened to encouraging one's child to look their best, to take pride in their appearance, to make a positive statement with the care they take? Why don't parents teach their children that people make their first judgement about them based on the way they look?

Pierced faces, neon hair, makeup on some that would make any horror show proud, and tatoos walk down the hall toward me every day, and I fear how much worse it can get.

Do all the studentslook like that? Absoutely not. The bright, well-behaved and nicely mannered students also dress appropriately. See the correlation? There is one, without question, and the connection is strong.

Parents, you're shelling out the money for their wardrobes, be courageous. Tell them how to dress; encourage them to take pride in their appearance, and to stand out not because they look weird, but because they look like they care.

Give them the gift of high expectations in all things, and watch out for the positive feedback and increased success.