What kind of parent puts their child’s fashion sense above their education?

It seems barely a week goes by without an indignant mum or dad whingeing on about poor little Johnny’s human rights.

Surely if you allow your 13-year-old to go to school with blue hair, a pierced tongue, or a horrible little piece of hair hanging down their neck, when you know it’s against school rules, you don’t really have a leg to stand on if enforcement action is taken.

But to some parents, this is an abuse of their child’s rights. A right to what, exactly? To get away with flouting school regulations?

One of the latest parents to get all self-righteous is a man whose son was told to cut off his ponytail because it goes against school uniform rules. Dad claims the school’s perfectly reasonable request is an infringement of the lad’s human rights and, as he’s had his ponytail since being a toddler, it would be distressing for him to have it cut.

I’d have thought that shouting from the rooftops about it, then going to the dramatic lengths of taking your child out of school would be far more distressing to a lad in his formative years than having a stringy bit of hair cut off.

Claiming his ponytail isn’t doing any harm is missing the point. School is all about preparing children for life in the real world – a world that comes their way all too soon and, like it or not, is full of rules.

What kind of message would a school be sending out if it let children do and wear whatever they pleased? The reality for most children is that after leaving school they’ll end up in jobs with a whole new set of rules, many of which carry legal implications if not adhered to.

It doesn’t do youngsters any favours to indulge them with unlimited freedom of expression, only for it to be snatched away once they have to make their own way in the world.

When there are rules about uniforms, hairstyles, make-up and jewellery, it’s up to pupils and parents to comply with these during school hours. Just because your precocious nine-year-old throws a tantrum if they can’t wear designer trainers or hair extensions for school doesn’t mean you have to give in to their ‘human rights’.

What children in this country do have a right to is a free education. That is something parents might appreciate a bit more, if they weren’t so obsessed with turning their offspring into fashion statements.