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Reasonable adjustment - hair colour

Mumof2ASDGirls

I am interested to find out if anyone has been able to successfully argue that their child needs a certain hairstyle/colour due to it being imperative for mental stability?

My D15, diagnosis of autism and mixed anxiety and depression disorder, has recently had a bad mental health breakdown which resulted in 2 A&E visits and an overnight stay in hospital. She is prone to self harm as a way of dealing with her emotions. She has just split with an abusive boyfriend and this triggered her MH issues. She wanted to 'change herself' to not be the person he wanted her to be and start being her own version of herself. She was talking about self piercing or self tattoo's, but her therapist and I managed to steer her away from these self harm routes and guided her towards changing her hair colour. She has been out of school for a number of weeks now as her ex is a member of the school and she feels unsafe. School have eventually made provision for online learning (although it is far from adequate), but she is about to take her GCSEs and has 2 subjects which require her to go in and join classes (Textiles and Drama). The school are excluding her from coming in to these sessions due to her hair being half black and half blue. Initially they said she could attend if she didn't mix with the general school population.

Parents

  • I sympathise with the situation you and your daughter have found yourselves in with her school. I am working on the assumption that if the school makes an exception for your daughter, it could put them in a difficult situation and result in a backlash from other students who may want to dye their hair. Therefore, easier for the school to have a blanket ban that applies to all students than make an exception.

    Is it possible a compromise could be reached with your daughter, just until her exams are out of the way? I don't know if such products are still available, but I remember when I was a teenager it was possible to buy temporary hair dye sprays that could be washed out afterward. Something like that could be a temporary solution for when she's not required to attend school for her exams. It's just a thought. 

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  • I sympathise with the situation you and your daughter have found yourselves in with her school. I am working on the assumption that if the school makes an exception for your daughter, it could put them in a difficult situation and result in a backlash from other students who may want to dye their hair. Therefore, easier for the school to have a blanket ban that applies to all students than make an exception.

    Is it possible a compromise could be reached with your daughter, just until her exams are out of the way? I don't know if such products are still available, but I remember when I was a teenager it was possible to buy temporary hair dye sprays that could be washed out afterward. Something like that could be a temporary solution for when she's not required to attend school for her exams. It's just a thought. 

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