Detention for wrong book - long sorry

Exactly what iguana said. She is at secondary school now and she knows the deal.

imagine you only have two complaints are year you can give to school with this really be one of them?

If you teach over 300 kids one not going her book in to be marked is bloody annoying.

As are over protective parents. Don't email in. Let her take the detention fgs

In my day, if you mentioned getting into trouble at school, you were guaranteed a clip around the ear at home. Silence was always the best policy.

my parents just weren't that involved in the every day minutiae of my school life.

Absolutely.

Things really seem to have changed since my schooldays, which were admittedly a long time ago. Or maybe it's just on Mumsnet. But my parents just weren't that involved in the every day minutiae of my school life. We were often kept in for things like not handing in homework, redoing poor work, general messing about. Sometimes it might not have been fair. I don't think I even mentioned it to my parents most of the time. I don't think I'd have wanted them involved in every aspect of my school life. It was my life, not theirs. (Big things such as reports, parents' evenings, school events etc they were interested in and did involve themselves in.)

My advice to the OP would be to play it down. 'Oh well, it happens, you won't make that mistake again, will you, now what do you want for tea?' There'll always be stuff happening at school that she has to learn to negotiate, and the more you make a big deal of it, the more she'll think it's a big deal.

Probably not because differences in behavioral traits are strongly influenced by the luck of your genes. It's comfortable to believe that life is overwhelmingly what you make it i.e. that a Fretful Mummy modelled and taught their behaviour to the Fretful Child, but it is more likely that when the dice were rolled the child simply ended up with a parent's fretful genes.

That said I'd quite like my DD to get a detention. She could pee all over some of the current fashionable grit & reslience tick-boxes and knows how trivial the punishment is via a couple of saintly friends who Forgot a Book, but DD still seems a bit to terrified of the prospect of a detention. Perhaps getting the experience over with will help.

Yanbu it was unfair, but the issue here is your DDS lack of resilience. You need to let her take her punishment. Mummy wading in as soon as things get choppy might be the cause of her problem

You know best.

Which is why the minor misdemeanours card works.

It depends. If you work in a school where students are regularly forgetting books, then don't copy up notes etc then it becomes a big problem. You have to have an edge of intolerance at times otherwise everything can be written off as a mistake, expectations lower and learning suffers.

Can I get my book, it's in my locker (yes no problem Emily - 5 mins of lesson lost)
Me too (sure thing Adam!)
Me too (OK Lucy!)
I left my homework in my form room (no probs)
OK let's get going. Sophie you forgot your book last week and so did you Josie and Martha you mixed up your science book. Did you all copy up? You did Sophie. Martha and Josie forgot again. Ok no problem. Oh here's Lucy back - it wasn't there? Oh right. Where's Adam? He went to the toilet quickly you say...ok. Right. Let's get some paper for Lucy and I will just write a note in your planner to remember your book. Here's Adam.. Adam you shouldn't have gone off to the toilet, you're just back from lunch. Oh ok you forgot to go. I understand. These things happen. No problem. And you have your book. Great. Ok Emily is back - great - she has her book. Right so your homework was to research 3 elements of xxx ready to tell everyone. Yes Alexis - your internet was down ok that's not your fault I understand. James you wrote it down wrong you say? Yes I understand mistakes happen. Don't worry. Lily you did 2 because you didn't have time. No problem. I understand.

In your circumstances I would:
A) talk to the head of year/pastoral tutor, about your DDs anxiety and reaction to this detention.
B) tell her lots of stories about wh n you got detentions etc. ( I am relieved all me me got their first one pretty quickly so didn't get too anxious, they actually often "enjoyed" detention).
C) see your GP about her anxiety, because in my experience it gets worse in the teenage years.

I teach in a secondary school and I think it helps to show you are human and sometimes make mistakes. If someone is a 'usual suspect' I give them detention but I always give people 24 hours reprieve with homework etc..... Then I set detention.
I don't always get it right but I try and explain why I have decided on a course of action.
Our detentions are the same day normally though (if we can get hold of parents) or the day after.

Teachers aren't perfect, and some work in high octane environments.

You have recognised that the teacher was near the end of her tether when poor DD brought the wrong book. With a class where numerous pupils present with similar and slightly worse misdemeanours, it is understandable that a stressed out teacher failed to treat your daughter as an individual. She has probably already realised this by now herself and is feeling guilty over her Friday glass of wine.

A simple email to inform her that this was DDs first offence, and DD is otherwise extremely diligent, should do the trick. Coming alongside the teacher will be the right thing to do.

If DD has the detention cancelled, please tell her not to make a song and dance of it.

Bit, the OP's dd isn't in a school where detentions are handed out for first time minor offences though. It's different. The policy in her school is a verbal warning with detentions as a punishment further on in the discipline policy. I doubt the kids in her school are running a competition to see who can accumulate the most detentions.

Well, yes, we all do it. They just learn not to be quite so slapdash when they know there's a consequence. It still happens, just not so often as it might otherwise.

Dh is a teacher & he forgets books/equipment sometimes!

Forgetting or mistaking a book isn't misbehsving though. Punishing someone for an honest, genuine mistake, especially a normally conscientious student causes resentment.

Some people/children are naturally organised. Others ;including my two on the autistic spectrum have to work twice as hard at it & errors still happen.

Why would it, Balletgirl? If all misbehaviour, rudeness and messing about can be eradicated by the threat of detention (as if); why would also getting detention for not being properly equipped for lessons suddenly make it something not to give a shit about?
It either works as a deterrent or it doesn't

At ds's svhool the kids know that misbehaviour, rudeness, messing about etc will not be tolerated. There is a culture of mutual respect.

Giving random detentions for mixing up books I think would undermine that culture.

What ballet girls said. If you hand out detention for trivial first offences you also have nothing left in the locker for the big stuff. There seems to be a culture of treating all secondary pupils as feral beings incapable of behaving well without draconian and pretty discipline - in some schools. Meanwhile I see our local mixed comp with a non-leafy intake managing perfectly well with a more reasonable system. It makes me think these 'tough" schools are just being lazy.

Rafa it clearly hasn't been devalued by the OP's DD

I disagree molly. Detention for taking the wrong book would Have no effect on it happening again in the future. It would oribably just mean Ds would be late for/get upset about going into school if he realised a mistake had been made.

Detention is for misbehaviour/consistently not handing in work / 3 low level minor offences.

Doesn't that depend slightly on detention not having been devalued by overuse and the kids being bothered by getting one?

It helps to keep the mistakes in the singular, pointy. That's the pointy

Teacher: you've got detention
Pupil: but it was a simple mistake
Teacher: oh! Now you put it like that, no detention for you!

Ha ha ha ha ha