School Uniforms for the Day Care Set a Growing Trend

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school uniforms

At what age should kids start wearing school uniforms? Credit: Getty

Note to parents: Add khaki pull-ups, polo shirts and navy skorts to the boxes of tissues, paint smocks and juice boxes on your toddler's school supply checklist.

Apparently, uniforms bring a sense of "professionalism and orderliness" to the preschool learning process, "Today" reports, and day care centers like the structured look, too.

Borrowing a parochial and private school tradition, parents say preschool uniforms stave off clothing competition for these 3-year-old budding fashionistas.

Christie Rickert of Locust Grove, Ga., tells the Wall Street Journal her now 4-year-old daughter Donna developed an eye for fashion when she was just a toddler in day care.

"She would actually say, 'So-and-so has this skirt. Can I get it?' " her mother tells the newspaper.

But since Rickert enrolled Donna at ABC Montessori School in McDonough, Ga., where all the children wear uniforms, "we don't have those kinds of conversations anymore," she adds.

Rickert tells the Journal choosing a white or navy polo shirt and navy or khaki shorts or skirts, just like all the other kids, "took the pressure off, of trying to belong."

Several big school apparel makers have jumped on board this new preschool uniform trend, including French Toast and Classroom School Uniforms.

ABC Montessori Executive Director Kimberly Morey tells the Journal having the children wear uniforms "eliminates distractions."

"Children come in comfortable and prepared to focus," she tells the newspaper. "They're not worried about what their neighbor is wearing or what their mom didn't let them wear today."

Uniforms also reinforce the idea of feeling part of a group, Morey adds.

Even in preschool, she tells the Journal, "if you put a blue shirt on a child, he or she knows 'I'm getting ready for school.' "

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