Comment on this storyComment
Dear Miss Manners: My 6-year-old daughter has had a best friend ever since the girls were old enough to notice there was another small person in the stroller next to them. During covid, her mother and I arranged outdoor playdates and video calls. The girls are like sisters.
Just before they were to enter kindergarten last year, the friend, “Jenna,” was diagnosed with a form of cancer with a very low survival rate. My daughter understands that a terrible sickness got into Jenna, and that the doctors will do everything they can, but her friend may have to go to heaven. For the most part, she is handling the situation beautifully.
But then there is the hat. My daughter decided that she and Jenna needed matching hats when Jenna’s hair began to fall out so that it would be a “fashion statement,” not a problem. She insists on wearing her hair in a bun and covering it with the hat so she and her friend match. In time, the hat seemed to become a security object as well as a connection to her friend, who could not go to school and is often too ill to play. My girl is still little and is trying to cope with really big things. I understand her needing that hat. But her teacher, and the school, do not.
I understand that subtlety is lost on little ones, and rules need to be rules, so I tried to compromise on the school’s no-hats rule: Could she keep the hat with her, but just not wear it indoors? Other kids brought stuffed animals for comfort, so why not a hat?
The teacher was having none of it, and she called me more than once to lecture me and call my daughter “uncooperative.” She even took down my girl’s little updo for school pictures, resulting in a collection of photos in which she was bawling.
Yes, the teacher is uncomfortable with the idea of a child dying. Who isn’t? But there is my little girl, with far less maturity and understanding to help her cope, feeling picked on when she needs support. I need Miss Manners’s ruling on the issue of the hat, and any advice as to how I can better handle this situation.
While immensely touched by the empathy of your daughter, Miss Manners also has a shred of sympathy for a teacher who is reluctant to break rules for one child. But clearly this teacher has issues stretching well beyond that — putting hands on your daughter’s hairdo being not the least among them.
An immediate solution to the hat problem could be putting it on a stuffed animal when she arrives at school. But if this teacher still does not relent, Miss Manners suggests that you ask the principal to intercede.
Surely your daughter is not the first student, nor will she be the last, to experience loss. Whatever the school’s underlying issue, the administrators must explain their policy — or find their own empathetic way to handle it.
New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday through Saturday on washingtonpost.com/advice. You can send questions to Miss Manners at her website, missmanners.com. You can also follow her @RealMissManners.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2023/04/28/miss-manners-school-hat-rules/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_lifestyle