To think that children should not be left unsupervised with chemicals?

[PandoraHadABox]

DS (14yrs) was in an after-school detention for admitting to adding to classroom graffiti. Fully agreed that it was wrong and he needed to be punished. Collected him after detention and he complained of having a headache and feeling dizzy. Turns out that teacher gave him a bottle of acetone and methylated spirits and a cloth, no gloves, and was told to clean the graffiti. The fumes were strong so DS had the sense to open the windows. Teacher left him for over half an hour on his own to get on with it. Made sure DS had fresh air and lots of water and he felt better later the next day. I personally think that he should not have been given the chemicals to use, let alone unsupervised. What do you think?

Ever! Didn't see you there! [waves back]

Oh please, he's being a drama llama!

No wonder some are so out of control in public with Mums like the OP.

Christ , , he is 14 not 4 years old !

Does he not do any cleaning at home?

Like others have said he is 14 not 4

You seem more annoyed about that than the fact your precious snowflake was defacing school property?
He's playing you. Leave it.

Left alone with nail polish remover, oh the horror!

FFS - this is the third thread where a kid has behaved badly in school and parents are focusing on some aspect of the punishment, rather than the fact that their beloved sons have been really badly behaved.

I feel really sorry for today's teachers if these are representative of many parents' behaviour :(

'felt better later the next day' so he managed to skive a day off school as well? Bet he's very pleased with himself!

The conversation should have gone like this:

Child : I have a headache from cleaning off my graffiti.
Parent : serves you right.

"adding to classroom graffiti"

You are minimising the criminal damage he committed. In not having high expectations of your child (or in this case expecting pretty basic social norms) you are causing him serious harm. I've taught in pretty rough schools and never been anywhere where graffiti wasn't a big deal, the teacher did him a favour handling it himself and in the process taught him a valuable lesson that you then undermined.

A school I worked at had a couple of kids do this on the last day of term, so they simply had the police pick them up and the parents collected them from the police station.

Don't get me wrong, he was punished by us too, was just a bit bothered about the after-effects. Am well aware that he also may be playing us off too, thank you for your opinions. To be fair, he did admit to adding to the whole wall of graffiti with the word 'Bill' and thought that he did the right thing by owning up. Perhaps he was cross about getting punished as the rest of the graffiti artists did not get caught. Believe me, he has been given strong words of advice and will not be doing that again.

Donquixote - as I have said, he has been punished by us as parents at home also, we do take it seriously as parents and are not trying to minimise the fact that he caused criminal damage. However, even living in a low-crime area, the police would not attend for an incident such as this. Perhaps I did not make myself clear, but the reason I started the thread was not to question that he got punished, but for the use of chemicals, especially in the soft world we live in now.

Madrat, no, next day was a Saturday!

I bet the OP has left her 14 year old alone with Methylisothiazolinone and Phenoxyethanol both dangerous chemicals.

They are usually hidden in washing up liquid.

Are you going to go round and clean his toilet for him when he moves out in case he is overcome with fumes?

I left my children alone with sodium bicarbonate and disodium diphosphate and they baked me a cake.

Soft world?

However, even living in a low-crime area, the police would not attend for an incident such as this.** Are you for real?

Acetone fumes make me sick as a dog. Maybe he's unusually sensitive like I am? Something to consider next time he's tempted to write on something - or do his nails.

Lol at "For adding to classroom graffiti"

OP minimising the fact that your DS graffitied the classroom by pointing out that there was already some there...won't wash here...nor will babying him!

Whitchend
OP, was this his punishment?
he has been given strong words of advice
Can you be my mum?

At leas it wasn't that nasty dihydrogen Monoxide stuff...

So close to the full row needed for a Daily Mail drop in!

Crime - check, Youth of today - check, "Soft world" (PC gone mad?) - check,

Look forward to the article appearing shortly!

"Maybe the school also has a track record of permitting unsupervised access to di-hydrogen monoxide?"

Surely not!

Surely the sharpie he used to draw on the wall (which you probably bought him) also contains chemicals.

Better check his pencil case and take away everything bar a pencil so your ds comes to no harm.

Blank it will help if the teacher was a foreigner.