Aibu to have grassed ds up to school

[Catvsworld]

So ds is in year 11 and should have nose to the grind stone so to speak

And the last couple of weeks I have noticed on a Monday and Tuesday's he has been on Facebook

I would have thought the school had it blocked I keep his phone during the week so thought he may have been on his friends phone so when he came home asked him how come he was on FB during school hours he said he used the it computer

I had told him tbh he was supposed to be doing is bloody work not networking ffs he claimed he had finished his work so I said well you should be revising told him I would be contacting the school he just shrugged his shoulders so I bloody did



I did say that I do expect the school to have a better handle on this but do expect my son to get on with his work and not be jeffing about on Facebook I have told them to make sure they punish him in line with the school rules on this he's gonna hate me but I want him to do his work and get good results and FB will not help him achieve this

[MrsHathaway]

This is my friend's vlog regarding devices and GCSE revision.

OP, I think you are overreacting and school will not do what you are hoping. Good revision includes downtime and socialising.

Hope his exams go well.

[dizzytomato]

Kids have access to facebook on school computers? My kids school is pretty laid back but the only thing they can access at school is youtube restricted mode and google search. All games and social media is blocked.

Teachers use laptops for social media, the laptops are not accessible outside class.

I know all this because I work at the school. I think you need to teach him how to manage his time. He won't learn how to do that if you are managing it for him. So he may do ok at GCSE's but then what? A-Levels, University? Are you going to be able to keep his phone and have him monitored when he's out if the house then too?

It's a difficult task you are setting yourself. Ease up and guide him, rather than managing him. It will improve both your lives.

[LobsterQuadrille]

I'm afraid YABU. My DD is now in the upper sixth and about to do A levels. One of her friend's parents have been extremely strict regarding where she can and can't go, restricting her social life and access to social media etc. The result? She is so resentful that she has essentially stopped working. She is confined to her room while her friends are out celebrating each others' 18th birthdays but there is absolutely nothing you can do to "make" somebody else work and it can easily go the other way. You have to trust your DCs to want to achieve good results for themselves.

[ricketytickety]

I don't think the school will punish him for this.

If he's doing his work to his abilities then you should let him crack on and have his networking time. I'm not a big fan of fb for young people but in reality this is how most people communicate these days so it's just as important to him as his school work. Life isn't all work work work, there has to be an element of down time and socialising. It's a balance. If he's just going online a little then let it be.

Consider giving his phone back and have a chat to make sure he's doing enough without disturbing his work/life balance. That's important too.

Each time a child passes a level, they then move on to the next one. Most people achieve what it is in them to achieve, and can then concentrate on the next attainment. Once they get that next level, the previous attainments become less important. So this is just one more step in what will be a few more years of education yet at least. A bit of socialising along the way (so long as it's balanced) won't harm this and will make him a more rounded individual.

[Janus]

Sorry Cat but YABU. I too have a daughter in year 11, just a few weeks away from exams and would have hardly blinked an eye at this. They have lots of periods where they are now just to revise and if she went on FB for 15 minutes out of a double period I would roll my eyes at her but not report her to the school.
I do appreciate it's a really tough time and you are probably, like me!, stressing about how well he will do in exams. But give him some credit. I came down on my dd like a tonne of bricks months ago about how much revision to do, etc. We screamed at each other quite a lot! But we've got into a really good pattern now of lots of after school revision sessions and about 3-4 hours in the evening.
He also needs a phone as a 16 year old in the week. He will honestly not come and tell you anything about his life if you dictate to him like this. Trust him some more, give him his phone and do some nice things together at the weekend and talk to him about exams, etc.
I hope I don't sound rude, I just think you need to be a bit more forgiving, especially at this stressful time. Good luck.

[Emptynestx2]

I understand you being worried OP, our DS also needed to be reminded to keep focused but after a lot of stress on our part we decided to pick our battles, he did OK in his GCSEs - could have done better but has said there is nothing we could have done to make him work harder, it had to come from him. He works harder these days. Btw I can't believe he lets you keep his phone, the whole point of us finding them for our DC's was so that we had contact when they were out of the house!

[Lweji]

In fact, for better results, the brain needs to switch to other things from time to time.

[MrsUniverse]

YABU and expect your son to run as fast as he can as soon as he can. Ridiculous way to parent.

[BabyGanoush]

you can't revise 24/7

what's wrong with a bit of social media?!

Sounds like a very intense way to parent

[charlestonchaplin]

I don't think YABU, but I am usually out of step with others on here. When I was at boarding school (before mobiles) we were only allowed Walkmans from Saturday afternoon to Sunday night after supper. Then they had to go back into the boxroom. If you didn't put it back in and it was found during an inspection, it would be confiscated for the rest of the term. We weren't even allowed to have long hair as juniors as it was considered that its care would be too time consuming and distracting. It was a different environment for sure. Education and authority were much more respected.

[angielou123]

If he's otherwise no trouble, I wouldn't make an issue of it, let him get on with it. I wouldn't blow it up into something it's not.

[diddl]

I do hope that the school don't punish him for something that they didn't see him doing.

"We weren't even allowed to have long hair as juniors as it was considered that its care would be too time consuming and distracting."

That is just draconian!

[MrsSteptoe]

Tangentially, I attended a talk on managing recreational screen time with adolescents recently, and one of the things that was mentioned was yo-yo-ing between study and general electronic recreation (whether that be social media or gaming). The research seems to indicate that during a period of study, your mini-breaks (or your DC's mini breaks) should on no account be passed using any form of screen. I can't quite remember what the speaker said in scientific terms, but my impression was that all the electronic fun stuff barges its way to the front of the brain queue, so to speak, and all the learning stuff gets diminished. I found it quite persuasive.

He wasn't particularly hardcore, either - the guideline he recommended was no more than two hours per day screentime for adolescents (that's social media, gaming, television - anything you can think of that isn't strictly homework-based) which struck me as very generous and certainly more than DS gets. So I am following this advice with my DS, who's coming up to Y8 summer exams, and his mini-breaks from revision will be limited to Asterix, TinTin, Batman graphic novels, that type of thing. Possibly, I might let him watch a David Attenborough DVD. But I think the point is, you avoid anything that really sparks a certain type of engagement.

Sorry if all that's off topic - I know that you're actually grappling with something slightly different here, so I haven't really responded to your OP directly - and I'm sure there will be lots of people who disagree, or who claim I've misunderstood something!

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Dd also year 11 has been left to it. If she revises great, if she doesn't it is up to her but I have several years of her being left to her own devices and she knows what happens if she fails. Dd knows what she wants to do and knows what she has to do to get there. I will support her all the way and do whatever I can but sometimes you have to let go.

[Jemappelle]

What? I came on expecting a massive drugs or punishable offence related issue. Christ op!

[SeriousCreativeBlock]

YABU and anyway, keeping him 100% focused on exams at all times is only going to be detrimental and he'll end up burned out. He will probably rebel, and with all the blocks in the world in place to prevent him accessing social media or whatever, he'd still find a way around it.
Speaking from experience. My DF tried to prevent me going on facebook etc during my exams and it just caused me to go to greater lengths to access what I wanted.
Plus it had a massive negative effect on my MH.

[Lweji]

Yes, MrsSteptoe

Ideally, the down time would be walking, or doing something physical.

In this instance, if he'd already done his work, why not go for a bit on FB?
Revision time would be separate, and preferably after stretching his legs and having some food too.

[MyLocal]

Oh dear, mine were on FB, Twitter, Instagram and Tumbler whilst doing GCSEs, ALevels and Uni Finals. They got their grades. A little light relief is good for anyone, if only to share that they are fed up of revising!

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Charleston, I too went to boarding school. Parents thought among other reasons I I would be studying harder and longer if I was at school 24/7.
Bed was by 7.30pm even at 16. Result meant I was out of the window and down the fire escape and out on the town with my non boarding school friend (dps put me to board 2 miles from where I lived). and her bf who had a car. My parents had decided my future. I had other ideas. In the end I passed no O Levels.

[MrsSteptoe]

MyLocal I find that very comforting! (Though not necessarily any guarantee that DS would get the same outcome...!)

[MummyBtothree]

My Mum was all for tough love...you can be too tough though sometimes and it becomes controlling.

[coldcanary]

I'm at all the horror about an adult daring to discipline a 16 year old - do all of you stop parenting when your children get taller than you then?
OP telling the school to punish him was a bit ott but I can understand keeping hold of his phone. He's 16 and not an adult. On any other type of post he would be acknowledged as still a child ffs

[albertcampionscat]

The Harry Potter novels got me through finals. I did alright. Seriously, let go. YABU.

[charlestonchaplin]

My boarding school was in the middle of nowhere, well not exactly, there was a town, but there was no point going there for entertainment. In any case you'd have to make your way through the bush where snakes and scorpions and what-have-you lived.

I chose the school. It was a new school, as close to a British school as I could get, or so I thought. My mother wanted me to be a day student at a school in my home city. My dad just wanted me to be happy. I wanted a good education and I thought it would be like Mallory Towers, with the British head. It wasn't really how I imagined it would be, but we did realise that we were getting a good education. In the developing world it is much more difficult to have a decent standard of living without good qualifications, and we were well aware of that.