To think this is a ridiculous reason for DS to be put into isolation?

[varskudd]

DS(15) came home from school very annoyed yesterday, he said he was put into isolation for having a drawing on his hand/wrist. He got bored so he drew on his hand with a pen, but it's not just scribbles.

Apparently, he was told to go to the toilet and wash it off and he tried to but it wouldn't come off so they sent him to isolation. He tried to get it off at home and it wouldn't, I tried to this morning and it slightly faded but it's still there.

Aibu to think this is ridiculous?

@Blossomtoes

If it’s the rule then it’s the rule whether we agree or not

I just don’t get this. I brought mine up to obey rules if there’s a good reason for them and not to just mindlessly follow them if they made no sense. As a result they’re skilled in risk assessment and capable of independent thought.

So presumably wouldn't sit in a lesson doing colouring in on their own hands 😂

So presumably wouldn't sit in a lesson doing colouring in on their own hands

Why on earth not? What good reason lies behind such a trivial and pointless rule? I’m just glad I and my kids were out of the education system before it got like this.

@Blossomtoes agree with this.

I think it's stupid how children are expected to unquestionably follow rules like this.

I have always been a more creative thinker and think better when I'm doing something like drawing on a paper - I still do it now. To be sent to isolation is both pointless and shaming a natural behaviour which might be how your DS learns best. Children aren't robots and to expect them to be is to teach them there's something 'wrong' with them for being individual.

I also work better when I'm standing up. As a child I was punished for this repeatedly at school. As an adult I have a standing desk. The shaming was unnecessary and only made me feel like there was something wrong with me for no reason.

@Blossomtoes do you think there is a general trend in this direction, then? I’ve been worrying about it (I’ve got one toddler and another baby on the way) but wasn’t sure if it was just a lot of media coverage of a minority of schools.

Parents of secondary school age kids (and primary, actually) is this kind of strict enforcement of trivial or arbitrary rules the norm?

[quote SparrowNest]@Blossomtoes do you think there is a general trend in this direction, then? I’ve been worrying about it (I’ve got one toddler and another baby on the way) but wasn’t sure if it was just a lot of media coverage of a minority of schools.

Parents of secondary school age kids (and primary, actually) is this kind of strict enforcement of trivial or arbitrary rules the norm?[/quote]
I honestly don’t know. It’s a long time since our kids were in education. It does look that way to me. You only have to look at the approval for mindless rule following on MN to see that it must have been around for a while. I find it really worrying.

I'm all for rule-following in schools, I just think that some schools need to be a lot more selective about how many and which rules they put in place.

The rules should be about things that are fundamental and important enough that they should be blindly followed. Because we don't want pupils acting on their own interpretations of things like bullying policies and safety rules. Most of us are quite happy for adults to be expected to 'blindly' obey laws, speed limits etc. Same applies to important rules in school.

Meh....I couldn't get het up about this. Presumably the teacher would have preferred him to concentrate on the lesson than doodle.

That would be very silly of the teacher. Many children need to doodle or fidget in order to concentrate - it's an indicator of sensory problems.

Presumably the teacher would have preferred him to concentrate on the lesson than doodle.

He didn't doodle in the teacher's lesson. And it's perfectly possible to doodle and concentrate.

Mine are 8 and 6 and I really worry about them going to secondary. Primary seems much as it did when I was at primary (I'm 33)- a few issues more to do with curriculum than anything else but I don't think my kids school is unreasonable with rules.

The things I read about secondaries on here really concern me- they sound more like prisons than schools. I know one person IRL who has taken their DD out of secondary school for this reason.

I know I'm going to be butting heads with them all the time if my kids are sent to isolation for stupid crap like putting a biscuit in their pocket or having a hair bobble on their wrist.

@lazylinguist

I'm all for rule-following in schools, I just think that some schools need to be a lot more selective about how many and which rules they put in place.

The rules should be about things that are fundamental and important enough that they should be blindly followed. Because we don't want pupils acting on their own interpretations of things like bullying policies and safety rules. Most of us are quite happy for adults to be expected to 'blindly' obey laws, speed limits etc. Same applies to important rules in school.

Completely agree. That’s what I was attempting to say and you’ve summed it up perfectly.

*No child should ever be put in “isolation”. It is absolutely barbaric, and the total opposite of attachment and trauma-awareness.

Effective schools do not need this crazy zero-tolerance prison authority style discipline. It’s not even real discipline, it’s ruling by fear and shame.

How does having a hair bobble on your wrist cause low level disruption @elishaeva?*

This. No wonder there are such high levels of mental health problems in our children. What a miserable environment to have to spend so much of your time.

No wonder there are such high levels of mental health problems in our children. What a miserable environment to have to spend so much of your time.

This with bells on!

I would have hated it! I wasn't a bad kid. I was well behaved the vast majority of the time. Did fairly well at school. Most of the people in my classes at school were like this. I don't remember our teachers ever having to deal with any truly awful behaviour and they weren't resorting to behaving like Hitler to keep us in line either.

I'd have found it utterly soul destroying, demoralising, and anxiety-inducing to have every tiny aspect of my behaviour policed in such a way as appears to happen now. Not a good environment for learning, builds resentment and does nothing to encourage support from students and their parents.

You wait his black AF1's are school shoes.

Oh and the no 1 haircut, oh that was a slip of the clippers.

@RyanAirVeteran

You wait his black AF1's are school shoes.

Oh and the no 1 haircut, oh that was a slip of the clippers.

You say this as if a kid wearing black trainers or having their hair clipped short would be some sort of major issue that interfered with their education/the education of others.

Formal shoe policies, fine, though it can be an extra expense for parents and less comfortable for kids. The idea a school can dictate what a kid’s hair looks like seems mad to me.

My son has never been in isolation. Nor have any of his friends, and nor have the vast majority of children in the schools that I work in. In most schools the rules are very simple, and in the good schools they are explained clearly and are applied consistently.
Everyone in this thread is complaining about the schools and the rules and the punishments, not one person believes the responsibility lies with their child to avoid isolation. The school wants you to have a green pen? Take a green pen, and have a spare one in your bag in case is runs out. The school says don’t draw on your hands and arms - don’t draw on your hands and arms. Everyone can learn, no one is in isolation.
It’s so frustrating for teachers. They start a lesson, 30 plus kids, they ask them to take out their pen. If even 5 of them don’t have a pen then that is so disruptive.
In my sisters school the kids have discovered that if you colour in your palm and then put hand gel on you can turn your whole arm blue. Then they have to leave the lesson to wash their hands and arms. When they come back they have missed some of the input so they don’t know what to do. So disruptive to the learning of the rest of the class.

Everyone in this thread is complaining about the schools and the rules and the punishments, not one person believes the responsibility lies with their child to avoid isolation.

I've been a teacher for 25 years and have teenage dc who have never had a detention, never mind an isolation. That in no way means that I agree with all school rules and punishments.

Yes, if a child chooses to break a rule in full knowledge of the rule, then the child is responsible. However, schools are also responsible for making stupid rules, or sometimes applying those rules in stupid ways.

Everyone in this thread is complaining about the schools and the rules and the punishments, not one person believes the responsibility lies with their child to avoid isolation. The school wants you to have a green pen? Take a green pen, and have a spare one in your bag in case is runs out.

Wow @Elisheva, you must be absolutely perfect. You never make a mistake at all I take it?

With the very best attitude and will in the world, everyone makes mistakes at some point. Yesterday I had a meeting at work and I forgot someone, completely by accident, from the invite list. My manager noticed last minute but it's honestly unclear whether it was my error or his due to not checking the list (lots of staff changes). Either way, it was one of us who made a mistake- both apologised, no big deal, no blame- we moved on. No punishments, no deliberately trying to throw weight around.

Unless it's someone who is constantly just pissing around and making no effort ever, forgetting a pen is no reason to send someone to isolation. Far more disruptive to the lesson to send a kid to isolation than to just hand them a bloody pen, with a reminder to remember it next time. Ridiculous.

The school wants you to have a green pen? Take a green pen, and have a spare one in your bag in case is runs out.

So you think a child should mindlessly accept being punished for using a pen that's not green? Why do they need a green pen only? What is that in aid of?

Stupid rules with zero transparency naturally cause rebellion and kids not liking school or respecting authority - because they're not being treated with respect themselves. It's so unnecessary.

I used to doodle my friends/boyfriends names on my hands at school 😂 I would have been in isolation a lot lol. Seems a bit overkill imo.

The school wants you to have a green pen? Take a green pen, and have a spare one in your bag in case is runs out.

Also, just because you have an (unnecessary) rule about green pens (which one teacher is apparently allowed to arbitrarily mess up 'because he likes red ones' ), that doesn't mean that the punishment for having the wrong colour pen should be an isolation (which would be more appropriate for less absurdly trivial more serious infractions).

Stupid rules with zero transparency naturally cause rebellion and kids not liking school or respecting authority - because they're not being treated with respect themselves. It's so unnecessary.

This. I mean whatever, don't really care if they want a green pen, fine (although petty and if there are loads of petty little rules or all adds up to feel like a dictatorship). But if a kid forgets one, really, isolation? Is that honestly proportionate? What happens if you forget your pencil case, is that a week's suspension? God when I was at school I'd have borrowed a pen from a mate and that would have been the end of it, my teachers wouldn't have given a shit if I was in class, listening to them and doing my work, even if it was someone else's pen.

It's ridiculous. And I agree that it's completely disrespectful to the kids themselves.

@Elisheva

My son has never been in isolation. Nor have any of his friends, and nor have the vast majority of children in the schools that I work in. In most schools the rules are very simple, and in the good schools they are explained clearly and are applied consistently. Everyone in this thread is complaining about the schools and the rules and the punishments, not one person believes the responsibility lies with their child to avoid isolation. The school wants you to have a green pen? Take a green pen, and have a spare one in your bag in case is runs out. The school says don’t draw on your hands and arms - don’t draw on your hands and arms. Everyone can learn, no one is in isolation. It’s so frustrating for teachers. They start a lesson, 30 plus kids, they ask them to take out their pen. If even 5 of them don’t have a pen then that is so disruptive. In my sisters school the kids have discovered that if you colour in your palm and then put hand gel on you can turn your whole arm blue. Then they have to leave the lesson to wash their hands and arms. When they come back they have missed some of the input so they don’t know what to do. So disruptive to the learning of the rest of the class.

How did you get that out of this thread?

My daughter got isolation for having a hobble on her wrist. Her school has 3000 pupils, she was short for her age and in the scrum (she was rushed to a&e in an ambulance twice as she got trampled I similar situations) her hair had come loose and she was worried about losing the bobble. So pulled it out of her hair and put it on her wrist to keep it safe.

When she got to the next class, her teacher sent her to isolation, dd said she just needed to put it in her bag. And was sent still sent. This was confirmed by the teacher because the school rule was no jewellery, a bobble classed as jewellery.

The incidents above were the 2 only times she was ever in isolation or even in trouble through her entire school history. It was known locally as a good school. But more and more parents are removing g their children because the focus has become more on their rules than the education.

I very much doubt, my dd being able to put her bobble in her bag. Was going g to he hugely disruptive to the other students. Or, indeed having a bobble on her wrist between classes.

Rules are important. But some schools are taking them too far, it's really negatively impacting the kids education.

Has it ever occurred to you why some of those kids don't have pens?

Has occurred to you that your or your sons school isn't a school that isolates at the drop of a hat?

@georgarina

The school wants you to have a green pen? Take a green pen, and have a spare one in your bag in case is runs out.

So you think a child should mindlessly accept being punished for using a pen that's not green? Why do they need a green pen only? What is that in aid of?

Stupid rules with zero transparency naturally cause rebellion and kids not liking school or respecting authority - because they're not being treated with respect themselves. It's so unnecessary.

This is so true

If my boss told me to go work in a room alone and not speak to colleagues, because I didn't use a green pen when he preffered me to, would that be OK?

Or would that boss eventually find themselves with high staff turn over and probably in a tribunal.

These petty rules are pointless and don't translate into the adult world because of how pointless they are.

And kids can't decide to hand their notice in a leave or, realistically, take the school to a tribunal.

God good thing I wasn't in school in a place with such rules, I need to doodle to stay focused on what people say. My best drawings have been made in meetings where I was actively participating.
I can draw or write and attentively listen to the radio at the same time, but I'd find really hard to just listening without doing anything.

*These petty rules are pointless and don't translate into the adult world because of how pointless they are.

And kids can't decide to hand their notice in a leave or, realistically, take the school to a tribunal.*

This. I don't think anyone has a problem with sensible rules. I mean the hair bobble thing, it's so fucking ridiculous. I doubt my teachers would have given a toss about us having hair bobbles on our wrists. But if we weren't supposed to do it, I'm pretty sure they would have you know, actually spoken to us like we were human beings and said something like 'can you please take the hair bobble off your wrist and put it away- thanks.' End of, job done.

If you want kids to follow rules then stop setting them up to fail with so many ridiculous petty little things that they will understandably have no respect for, that no adult would ever be subjected to in a workplace.