Do preschools really ban shirts with licensed characters?

[Anonymous]

This is a spin-off of the cool clothes for 6yo boys thread. Someone mentioned their preschool bans clothing with licensed characters on it. Is this common practice for preschools? What about elementary schools?

My 2yo DS has a lot of graphic tees - some licensed like batman, and others just with guitars or trains on it. Would just the batman shirt be banned or is it any pictures? The thread got me wondering how much of DS's clothing would not be acceptable if he attended a preschool with that rule.

[Anonymous]

Mine does not ban those types of shirts. I think maybe the elite privates would though.

[Anonymous]

Our middle school has a dress code which bans certain characters. Off hand I can't recall which ones, but my son knows.

[Anonymous]

Our preschool has a similar dresscode to the schools elementary which bans most graphics or writing on shirts. I think it's attempt to avoid having to police what is "appropriate" writing/graphics, and I'm fine with it.

[Anonymous]

I have mostly heard about these kinds of rules from parents with kids at Waldorf schools.

[Anonymous]

Ours only asked that we not have ones that were violent. That was a little hard to define. Is Spiderman violent? So then it evolved into no shirts with characters that had weapons (no light sabers?). Eventually a new set of parents arrived and we revised the rules to anything goes.

[Anonymous]

Many (if not all) Montessori schools also discourage licensed character clothing.

[Anonymous]

My oldest went off to school wearing a Cars2 t-shirt and mismatched athletic pants and topped it off with some random (and horrid) hand me down snowman sweater. His teachers don't even blink. It's so nice that he picks out his own clothes and dresses himself that I don't blink either.

I'm guessing some elite private/montessori/waldorf schools do.

[Anonymous]

We've been at 2 daycare centers and neither banned character shirts or shirts with writing.

My oldest is in K (public school) and I cringed a bit when I saw he wore a shark tee shirt to school one day. It was from a tourist shop in Calif. and the cartoon shark had a bloody grin. I'd prefer he not wear that shirt to school but nobody seemed to object.

[Anonymous]

I have never heard of that at a preschool, even a church-run one.

[Anonymous]

Our church-run preschool doesn't care what the kids wear but ask for appropriate shoes (no croc's or sandals) for the playground.

[Anonymous]

Discovery Woods does too for play reasons.

[Anonymous]

Our DD goes to a Montessori. There is no outright banning of specific characters, and not even any suggested banning. But I do know that, in general, it's very subtly discouraged to bring in princess, "Barbie," and superhero character toys... mostly, I think, because they're very distracting. The kids *want* *want* *want* these toys at the expense of other activities. Arguments arupt around who gets what, who borrows what, and who shares what at recess. I think from experience they just prefer not to deal with this, so if they're brought to school, the toys go into the kids' cubbies upon arrival and don't get taken out again until departure.

There's no animosity about this. I think the parents understand the teachers' position. And the teachers also understand that sometimes it's hard to pry that &*$% "Polly Pocket" out of your kid's hand before walking in the door... so the kids might walk in with it, but won't see it for the rest of the day.

[Anonymous]

Our kid goes to an "elite" Montessori and there is no ban of any sort on this type of clothing.

[Anonymous]

You're wondering which of your kid's shirts might hypothetically be banned if he hypothetically attended a school that might have some type of rule about this? Not to be snarky but I think you just need to ask your kid's school what they allow. Who cares what other schools do? Are you in any way basing your preschool decision on whether your kid can wear a Buzz Lightyear outfit to school?