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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to get angry when school threatens to exclude DS for smoking

206 replies

Sistah · 20/01/2011 19:10

14 year old DS smokes. We have taken him to smoking cessation classes to no avail. He has been caught smoking several times on school premises and today they are threatening to exclude him, after catching him again.
Now, seriously? My feeling is that they need some perspective. They want to exclude him for smoking, they want to take him out of a normal learning environment for smoking? I think they are being totally unreasonable but they just don't see it. I get the broken record routine: "He broke a school rule". Pfft.

OP posts:
maryz · 20/01/2011 20:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Maisiethemorningsidecat · 20/01/2011 20:40

Don't let him know that you disagree with the 'severity' Hmm of the threat - tell him that you've spoken to the Head, and have reached the same understanding that they have ie. it is not acceptable and will result (rightly so) in exclusion. Then as others have said, home school him for the duration of his exclusion.

klauskinskiinthekinotech · 20/01/2011 20:41

Sistah are you Ed Balls?

Ahardmanisgoodtofind · 20/01/2011 20:41

i think a temp exclusion is fair, but i do understand you p.o.v, i attended a school where a sneaky fag at break time was tame compared to the stuff going on in the toilets (a very good friend of mine was only suspended after being caught three times for giving out, ahem, "favours" for cocaine.)
i think you use the time ur ds is at home on suspension to slap on a nicotine patch and try and break the habit as best you can, but the school do have to set limits somewhere, just as im sure you do at home. sorry i'm not more helpful but i can understand your frustration under difficult circumstances, ,hope you find a resolution soon

MadamDeathstare · 20/01/2011 20:42

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BustleInYourHedgerow · 20/01/2011 21:02

Sistah, you sound like someone who is trying her best and I wish you luck, because it's not easy, is it? I just hope he realises what he's doing and quits.

0karen · 20/01/2011 21:17

I do not agree with school exclusion in any case, it is like an award to most kids who get excluded!

I used to et detention if caught smoking in school!

I would prefer my DDs smoked then get drunk every weekend as many teens do

Things I have to look forward to

Maisiethemorningsidecat · 20/01/2011 21:21

It's perfectly possible for teens (esp. at 14) to do neither on a regular basis...

maryz · 20/01/2011 21:24

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

chippy47 · 20/01/2011 21:30

Was the cessation class Allen Carr? If not they have a very high success rate and also publish this title:

allencarr.com/central/article/34/how-to-stop-your-child-smoking

Good luck.

0karen · 20/01/2011 21:36

except getting drunk is far more dangerous, a drinking session can kill or cause liver damage

Apart from that when your drunk you do not know what your doing and people often do things they regret

romanygypsywitch · 20/01/2011 21:37

oh blimey..

he is 14. your his parent for crying outloud...

FYI when i started smoking at 15 my mum once turned up at lunch time & break time caught me both times and embarressed me so much that i quit that day..

fuck me why have kids if you cant control them?

maryz · 20/01/2011 21:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

nightime · 20/01/2011 21:46

I wish my dd's school was as strict on smoking as they are on uniform, although as she is in year 13 she doesn't have the normal school uniform.

However until sept last year 6th formers could wear what they liked, Now they have to be smart and wear office type clothes,

Normally she wears dresses with tights but today as she had come on her period she wore a pair of long leggings under her dress, (she felt a bit more protected as they are thicker)
But she was pulled up and given a strike, 3 strikes and then a suspension,

It seems they are not bothered by the huddles of kids from all years smoking in the bus stop outside the school but a pair of leggings on a sixth former is not on,

They are also not allowed to wear boots in the winter (even in the snow), Thank goodness she hasn't got long there left, Ds is 15 but will be going to collage rather than staying on there.

ratspeaker · 20/01/2011 22:11

YBU
The lad has been caught smoking on school grounds several times according to your OP
He therefore knows he is doing something contrary to the rules,
he knows he is in the wrong,
he knows he is sticking two fingers up at health and safety, regulations and authority, so why should he escape punishment?
He needs to face it, if he does something against the rules there is a reaction

If and when he gets a job or goes on to college/uni they will also enforce no smoking bans
As I do in my home

If anyone tried to light up in ma hooose they'd get a nicotine patch slapped across their mouth

brightlightsandpromises · 20/01/2011 22:46

Sistah - the fact that he is smoking in school is a massive middle finger gesture to the school - so yes, he needs to be excluded. I am unsure as to whether exclusion works as dont these wayward children rather enjoy not having to go to school? I would have been cockahoop to have been expelled from school becuase i hated it.

If you want, i will talk to your son - i will explain to him how i watch my father drown inhis own lungs, and how i had to watch him die over a week, where all fluids and food was stopped, his catheter stopped needing emptying because his organs were stopping, one after another. He had lung cancer because he smoked. Before that, he spent two years in hell because he had dementia due to thickened arteries in his neck, because he smoked, the year before that, he had a heart attack, because he smoked - he stopped smoking, too late! Thats the outcome. My DD was born eight weeks before my father died, he never met her, i have to live with that. Seriously, pm me and i'll talk to your son for you.

Dont get me wrong, im not judging, i have a grown up daughter who idolised her grandad, he more or less bought her up as i was a single parent - she smokes, it breaks my heart :(

ilovesooty · 20/01/2011 22:48

For fuck's sake. Is the OP really serious?

MrsNonSmoker · 21/01/2011 00:07

I'm with ilovesooty on this one, I just don't know what to say, and we wonder why people go on about its all the parents' fault ... Sad

lowenergylightbulb · 21/01/2011 06:36

I work in a school and if I was caught smoking on school grounds, repeatedly, I'd be fired.

Whether or not your son smokes is a different issue but if he's daft enough to flout school rules all the time then he should expect to be booted out.

How would you feel about a teacher fagging it whilst in class (for example) - I'm sure you'd expect them to be punished/sacked.

tyzer2001 · 21/01/2011 06:44

I sometimes wonder if half of you can actually read.

She didn't say 'he smokes and I don't care'.

She said they've done everything they can think of to stop him and it hasn't worked.

Personally I agree that excluding him from school won't help - it will just give him more time and opportunity to have a fag!

But I don't know what the solution is.

gorionine · 21/01/2011 06:47

I agree with ratspeaker (first paragraph), he has been told several times and you have taken away his privileges none of which has worked. The school has to "step up" the punishment if nothing has worked so far.

FWIW I think it is sad it got so far but the school has to do it IMHO. Hang in ther Sistah, hopefully it will make him think and he will see sense.

Mishy1234 · 21/01/2011 07:00

He's breaking the school rules and also the law. Excluding him is exactly the right thing to do imo.

It's not the job of the school to stop him smoking, that is down to you. It is the school's job to ensure he doesn't do it on school premises and they also have a duty of care to other pupils.

Mishy1234 · 21/01/2011 07:02

tyzer2001- excluding him from school won't help him, but it will ensure they are meeting their obligation to the other pupils. OP's son isn't the ONLY child attending the school I presume? What exactly does she expect the school to do about it? Just let him carry on breaking the rules?

stLucia · 21/01/2011 07:19

I'd be more offended if they caught him smoking several times and didn't exclude him.
Does he smoke at home? Is it just infront of his friends that he smokes?
If so, then being away from these friends for a week or two sounds like a good idea.
If it isn't... I have no advice, if he doesn't want to quit, he won't.

lowenergylightbulb · 21/01/2011 07:27

tyzer, I must try that one on my boss 'please don't fire me for having a fag in the staffroom...it will just give me more time to smoke...'

He's flouting a school rule, and preventing smoking on school premises is something that schools have a statutory duty to do under various pieces of health and safety legislation.

It's not like the lad has been caught once, he's been caught repeatedly. And it doesn't matter what the 'offence' is, whether it's 'only smoking' he clearly hasn't got the good sense to confine his smoking to off the premises or the respect to comply with school rules and thus should have a fixed term exclusion.

He's 14, not 4. If he thinks he's 'mature' enough to smoke then he should be mature enough to abide by the rules regarding smoking on the school premises.