My Daughter phoned me at lunchtime to tell me she has been given detention for burping in the canteen at school

Hopefully people can control their wees and poos in the school canteen.

Tell her to suck it up and use manners next time.

If people can't control their "wee's" and "poo's" then they may also need to seek medical attention. I believe it's known as incontinence.

Francis- don't forget the other one, that she didn't know she was expected to say pardon me, despite apparently always saying it at home.

And here I thought that causing any avoidable unpleasantness to someone elae WAS bad manners

Burps and farts are not bad manners. Despite the well behaved bodies of most MNers, in the real world, unpleasant bodily noises happen. Your stomach might also start singing to itself.

There is a taboo around bodily functions which has meant that people feel that they have to apologise for doing them.

People laugh because they are embarrassed.

DS comes home with all sorts of outrage at what teachers did in the day and how they got yelled at by them. I roll my eyes and get on with making the tea personally.

Can you help your wee's and poo's?? No. Course you can't. And I can't help burping!!
This made me smile! I can indeed control my wees and poos so that I do them somewhere quiet and private. I have learnt to do the same with my burp, and the rare occasions they come out anyway, I have learnt to do so with my mouth closed so no-one can hear it. I personally hate people burping, especially as it has a habit of happening in a middle of a conversation, so interrupts it, and I don't get the 'excuse me' afterwards if indeed, the person didn't attempt to prevent it because they didn't think they needed to.

OP, the more you post and the more you minimise the situation, ie. you are totally defending your daughter and have validated by your actions her role as a victim. I too don't believe for a second that she was punished because she did a quiet burp (which if it had been, wouldn't have been heard in the first place) nor that the teacher reacted immediately because she didn't apologised. Whether you are leaving bits out yourself, or you've chosen to only hear that part when you had the discussion, I don't know, but it just doesn't make sense.

I think you've given your daughter a very wrong message by not only questioning her version of the event, but worse rewarding her for it. This is why so many teachers give up on the profession, it must be so disheartening to deal with parents who automatically assume that their kids are angels who can do no wrong, and that teachers are unfair sadistic monsters.

So your DD burped loud enough for all her friends to hear and to mess about and laugh, causing a disturbance and not saying excusing her lack of manners.

(That's what I think of the detention)

So burping DTs are hereditary in your family OP?

Talk about tarring all kids with the same brush. What nonsense. All women love to flirt. All men cheat.

This. I'd have been horribly embarrassed by burping or farting at school as a child. Some kids think it's hilarious. Not all of them!

The detention sounds massively OTT. If your daughter is generally quiet and well-behaved then even if she had indulged in a bit of silliness with friends, a teacher telling her off and pointing out that it was rude would have been more than enough. Zero-tolerance policies affect the well-behaved, conscientious or sensitive children the most - those who get detentions all the time won't care about another, but a Y7 who has never had one will be understandably upset if they're given one for something petty.

I think that children having to deal with unfairness or pettiness from school staff is a flaw in the education system, not a character-building feature, and that it's good parenting to tell your child if you feel a school decision is unfair and support/comfort her appropriately, even if she still has to go along with what the school has said. That doesn't mean that if she later gets a detention for something that actually deserves one, you'll support bad behaviour and 'create a monster.' There's middle ground here!

Blimey, my daughter would be mortified too. She really is a good girl and no trouble at school. However, she would've said pardon me. Without having to be brought up on it by a teacher

Sorry but that to me doesn't make sense either. Surely at that age, a child should know that burping is bad manner as would the other kid. It's the fact that it is bad manner that makes the kids do it. If kids were likely to tease for such behaviour, they wouldn't do it in the first place.

Kids are not embarrassed when they burp/fart, they love the attention they get from others' reaction.

Knowing it's bad manners is one thing, but sometimes embarrassment renders you unable to handle a situation appropriately. Nothing strange about that.

Talk about tarring all kids with the same brush. What nonsense. All women love to flirt. All men cheat.

Also nonsense.

I remember getting a detention for burping in class at secondary school and I said excuse me . It was embarrassing as like described here it was the smallest of burps and my teacher she called me out in front of the whole class told me off and gave the detention it wasn't nice . I did quickly move on but always remember it people having a go at this poor mother need to think on if her daughter is a quiet girl this will knock her confidence a lot and she has obviously done what she thinks best to console her poor DD end of .

Absolutely ridiculous parenting (or lack of it). Your child is now in secondary school,and you need to let her grow up, take the rough with the smooth and not turn an 'absolute nothing' into a traumatic episode. You are growing a demon if you don't back away and let the school,get on with their job. You can't be phoning every few days about such trivial things at secondary age, for goodness sake. I think you may be struggling with the move and not having the regular contact you get at primary so are inventing problems.

Perhaps she did know what to say but couldn't get the words out. Maybe she froze with embarrassment? That's certainly happened to me (not this exact situation!) before where I have known what to say but went very shy and felt I couldn't speak. That's as an adult! Speculation of course but surely that's a possibility.

Why didn't she already know the polite thing to do after belching? Most high school kids (and far younger) know it's basic manners to excuse yourself...

You could always have taken responsibility for her social education yourself, OP and taught her in the preceding years that burping in public is vulgar and, if it can't be helped, should be excused.

And if she insists on doing it and not excusing herself, as the majority of children would, then I think the correct response would have been 'bad luck, hope you've learned a lesson.'

I can't imagine what possible assault on her civil liberty would necessitate subsequent staying up late as being taken shopping to get over this.

You sound a little unhinged in need of perspective.

KLAXON

no one, I repeat no one is allowed bodily functions! Especially not unexpected ones!

Honestly. I've burped so quietly that excusing myself would have drawn attention to it and made unnecessary fuss. Or is that preferable?

This can't be the full story. For a start have ever heard the noise in a school canteen? Neither the burp nor any "pardon me" would be heard by anyone further away than the next seat.

On a separate note is "pardon me" correct?