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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel my Son given an unreasonable isolation day?

57 replies

stucky · 13/12/2024 10:46

I had a call from my DS school to inform me that he was almost suspended for losing a school lanyard. This has resulted in a safeguarding as the lanyards are used to show staff and students that you are allowed on site. The lanyard he lost was a teachers lanyard, which he was pressured to take off of another student and subsequently lost.

My DS (14) has ADHD and really struggles with his memory. He said that he had no idea how important it was, if he had he would never have agreed to take it. I feel that the system, which I was unaware of until this incident, is faulty. It seems crazy to me that a school would use lanyards as toilet passes when there are so methods that could be used. Am I being unreasonable?

OP posts:
Comefromaway · 13/12/2024 10:51

Those who say you are being unreasonable have no idea of the difficulties that ADHD people have with organisation. Punishing him for this is like punishing a blind person for not being able to see something.

My husband was a teacher and is now a uni lecturer and he is ALWAYS losing/forgetting his lanyard!

Agix · 13/12/2024 10:53

How/why was he "pressured" to take it off another student?

boulevardofbrokendreamss · 13/12/2024 10:54

Agix · 13/12/2024 10:53

How/why was he "pressured" to take it off another student?

This. Why did the other student have it in the first place?

ExtraOnions · 13/12/2024 10:54

So … a badge was taken off a teacher, it ended up in your Sons hands, and he lost it.

Punishment seems fine to me, I guess it shows the seriousness, and not to do it again

LostTheMarble · 13/12/2024 10:57

I’m sure many people will jump in to say you’re unreasonable, but anyone living with ADHD knows how utterly difficult it is to keep hold of things due to object displacement. I lost my main pair of glasses for a week, despite being convinced I’d put them down where I always do. They just vanished from existence and nothing in my brain could connect to what I did with them. You can’t punish the ADHD out of someone, what do the school think this will achieve? A punishment is meant as a consequence to avoid making the same mistake again, but in this case the school shouldn’t have given the teacher lanyard to someone who could in a moment of ‘zoning out’ put it down and have absolutely no cognitive function to remember doing it or where they left it.

SilenceInside · 13/12/2024 10:58

Did the teacher give their lanyard to the other student, so that they could access the toilets? That is an odd system if that's the case. Teacher's lanyards shouldn't be given to students, because of the possibility of things like this happening.

He made a mistake, he had a reasonable punishment. I'd focus on moving on, and possibly separately question the sense of handing out teacher's lanyards to students in order to access toilets.

purplecorkheart · 13/12/2024 10:59

He got it from another student? Should the other student have it? Why did he take it off him?

GretchenWienersHair · 13/12/2024 11:00

Comefromaway · 13/12/2024 10:51

Those who say you are being unreasonable have no idea of the difficulties that ADHD people have with organisation. Punishing him for this is like punishing a blind person for not being able to see something.

My husband was a teacher and is now a uni lecturer and he is ALWAYS losing/forgetting his lanyard!

Are you missing the part where it said it was the teacher’s lanyard and OP’s son took it?

To add, YABU OP. Whether it was the teacher’s lanyard or their biro, your son took something which clearly belonged to the teacher. The fact that it was his lanyard, which is needed for safeguarding purposes, only adds to that. Him losing it is slightly forgivable because of his ADHD, but he still took it in the first place, which is enough to have some sort of reflection for.

Octavia64 · 13/12/2024 11:02

Sounds like one of those situations where someone borrows or takes something and then it gets passed around a group in the classroom.

One year my year 7 class tried this with a girl's pencil case. Someone took it off her desk. She didn't have anything to write with and was very upset so I lent her all the lens and pencils she needed.

(Some of) the children then spent the lesson passing it around between them and trying to make her cry that she couldn't get it back.

I was not impressed.

I'm going to guess that someone asked to go to the loo and had the lanyard to prove they had permission. Then they got back to classroom and wanted to have some fun so said they'd lost it and spent the rest of the lesson passing it around.

Year 10 boys think this kind of shit is funny.

Sounds like your son wound up the loser as he had the lanyard at the end of the lesson and then presumably either really lost it or realised how much trouble he was in and "lost" it.

Teach him not to get involved in shit like this. The lads doing it generally make sure the kid who ends up with it is one they don't like just so they can get him in trouble.

(A lovely little boy wound up with the pencil case in my year 7 class but by then I'd worked out the culprits and he got a lot of praise for doing the right thing)

Namechangedagain20 · 13/12/2024 11:06

It sounds like the issue is that he shouldn’t have taken the lanyard off the other student in the first place. How did the other student get it? Was he given it by a teacher or did he take it? Who pressured him to take it?

If another student had the lanyard and your son took it and shouldn’t have done then I would just accept the punishment and hopefully he will learn a lesson about saying no in future. He shouldn’t have had the lanyard in the first place, the losing it and ADHD is irrelevant really. He just should not have taken it, if he hadn’t he wouldn’t have lost it.

elliejjtiny · 13/12/2024 11:09

Sounds like an unfair punishment for your son. My son has a toilet pass and it's a laminated price of card with his name on and "toilet pass" on it. Much better than using the teacher's lanyard. Although he does still forget to bring it in sometimes, and the teachers won't let him go without it.

APurpleSquirrel · 13/12/2024 11:18

So a teachers lanyard, which gives the bearer access to the whole site one assumes, was in the hands of another student & your son was 'pressured' into taking it? As in stole it or was handed it?

Why didn't he hand it straight in? Did he use it?

And then lost it, thus creating a much worse safeguarding situation?

Sounds like a perfectly adequate response tbh. Hopefully all the other students involved were suspended too?

RosieLeaf · 13/12/2024 11:19

Taking the lanyard from another student is just as big, if not bigger an issue as losing it? How was he ‘pressured?’

Yabu - the punishment is fine. It has to be a punishment, that’s the whole point.

purpleme12 · 13/12/2024 11:21

Isn't he being punished for having a teacher's lanyard in the first place and then losing the teacher's lanyard?

Which does seem slightly different to what you're presenting in your OP

In which case I can see why they might be punishing him

minipie · 13/12/2024 11:23

As PP have said the issue is not so much that he lost it, people do lose things especially with ADHD. If it was his own lanyard he lost I’d agree the punishment is disproportionate.

The issue is more that he had a teacher’s lanyard in the first place.

Pressured to take it? What does that mean?

McSpoot · 13/12/2024 11:27

If he’d lost his own lanyard, I agree with those saying “but you don’t understand ADHD” but I read it to say that he lost a teacher’s lanyard which he never should have at all. If this is the case, the punishment is not modified by his lack of being able to remember.

WigglyVonWaggly · 13/12/2024 11:29

The losing things due to ADHD isn’t the issue, surely. It’s the handling of a teacher’s lanyard which he knew he shouldn’t have had, hence the pressure to take it. Is that one which allows entry through certain doors off bounds to students? If so, he deserves the isolation. ADHD isn’t an excuse for that. That’s just naughty and a safety risk.

Heronwatcher · 13/12/2024 11:36

Much more backstory I think.

How did he get the lanyard? Did the teacher give permission for HIM to use it? I suspect they let another child use it and then your son got hold of it without permission. That in itself is pretty bad, even without him then losing it. If this is the case I suspect the school has their suspicions that the loss of the pass might have a bit more to it…

Someone having a teacher’s pass who
shouldn’t is a massive headache. They have access in and out of the site (safeguarding risks), and probably to confidential records, places where valuables/ medication are stored. Huge risks. I agree that the school needs to look at why the pass was lent in the first place but your son (a) taking it (whether he was pressured or not), and (b) losing it is a big deal. I suspect without the ADHD he would have been suspended.

In all honesty I would be focussing on your son’s behaviour and how he can avoid this happening in the future.

AnneLovesGilbert · 13/12/2024 11:43

He said that he had no idea how important it was, if he had he would never have agreed to take it.

That doesn’t make sense and his memory issues don’t seem irrelevant unless he was looking at a teacher’s lanyard and somehow forgot that teachers have lanyards which no student should be taking, never mind losing.

He fucked up, this is the consequence, maybe next time he’ll think twice.

Moier · 13/12/2024 11:47

Schools are getting worse and worse.. too many rules and regulations... not enough time on education.. and that's why my Grandkids didn't/ don't go.

SENMUMwhatnext · 13/12/2024 11:48

It won’t be the losing it that is the reason he is in isolation. It’s for taking property which he knew belonged to a teacher. He could have refused to have taken it or taken it and handed to another of staff staying he had found it.

Jifmicroliquid · 13/12/2024 11:49

Why did he have the teachers lanyard? I’m guessing his friend stole it off the teachers desk and somehow your son ended up with it?

AnneLovesGilbert · 13/12/2024 11:55

Moier · 13/12/2024 11:47

Schools are getting worse and worse.. too many rules and regulations... not enough time on education.. and that's why my Grandkids didn't/ don't go.

You don’t think there should be rules which stop students from taking the property of the staff teaching them? How strange. Rules around theft are pretty normal in society.

RosieLeaf · 13/12/2024 12:03

Moier · 13/12/2024 11:47

Schools are getting worse and worse.. too many rules and regulations... not enough time on education.. and that's why my Grandkids didn't/ don't go.

I’m absolutely fine with people who think there should be no rules or regulations in school, not sending their kids there. Leaves it civilised for the rest of us.

Minihero · 13/12/2024 12:07

So he nicked a teacher's lanyard and then lost it. A day in isolation seems very fair to me. Bear in mind he'll be in the real world in a few short years where there will be consequences for actions and it won't matter that he has ADHD or what his mum thinks.