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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To feel my Son given an unreasonable isolation day?

57 replies

stucky · 13/12/2024 10:46

I had a call from my DS school to inform me that he was almost suspended for losing a school lanyard. This has resulted in a safeguarding as the lanyards are used to show staff and students that you are allowed on site. The lanyard he lost was a teachers lanyard, which he was pressured to take off of another student and subsequently lost.

My DS (14) has ADHD and really struggles with his memory. He said that he had no idea how important it was, if he had he would never have agreed to take it. I feel that the system, which I was unaware of until this incident, is faulty. It seems crazy to me that a school would use lanyards as toilet passes when there are so methods that could be used. Am I being unreasonable?

OP posts:
purplecorkheart · 13/12/2024 10:59

He got it from another student? Should the other student have it? Why did he take it off him?

SilenceInside · 13/12/2024 10:58

Did the teacher give their lanyard to the other student, so that they could access the toilets? That is an odd system if that's the case. Teacher's lanyards shouldn't be given to students, because of the possibility of things like this happening.

He made a mistake, he had a reasonable punishment. I'd focus on moving on, and possibly separately question the sense of handing out teacher's lanyards to students in order to access toilets.

LostTheMarble · 13/12/2024 10:57

I’m sure many people will jump in to say you’re unreasonable, but anyone living with ADHD knows how utterly difficult it is to keep hold of things due to object displacement. I lost my main pair of glasses for a week, despite being convinced I’d put them down where I always do. They just vanished from existence and nothing in my brain could connect to what I did with them. You can’t punish the ADHD out of someone, what do the school think this will achieve? A punishment is meant as a consequence to avoid making the same mistake again, but in this case the school shouldn’t have given the teacher lanyard to someone who could in a moment of ‘zoning out’ put it down and have absolutely no cognitive function to remember doing it or where they left it.

ExtraOnions · 13/12/2024 10:54

So … a badge was taken off a teacher, it ended up in your Sons hands, and he lost it.

Punishment seems fine to me, I guess it shows the seriousness, and not to do it again

boulevardofbrokendreamss · 13/12/2024 10:54

Agix · 13/12/2024 10:53

How/why was he "pressured" to take it off another student?

This. Why did the other student have it in the first place?

Agix · 13/12/2024 10:53

How/why was he "pressured" to take it off another student?

Comefromaway · 13/12/2024 10:51

Those who say you are being unreasonable have no idea of the difficulties that ADHD people have with organisation. Punishing him for this is like punishing a blind person for not being able to see something.

My husband was a teacher and is now a uni lecturer and he is ALWAYS losing/forgetting his lanyard!