After school detention is a thing now?

[PennyWhistleSweet]

My 11 yr old yr 7 son has been issued an after school detention for disrespecting a new teacher.

We never had them at my high school and wanted to know what you all thought of them.

Myself, I'm currently at whits end with him calling me a fucking bitch and pushing me etc (another thread for another day) so I'm hoping this might give him a bit of a shock.

You don't know what he'd doing at lunchtime, then. He could well be accessing other things via his friends' phones.

I'm assuming he doesn't visit friends' homes in the evenings? I had a a TA who came in shellshocked one morning. Her 9 yr old had been over at a friend's house to watch a movie.

The friend's idiot mother had allowed a group of 9 yr old boys to watch 'The Human Centipede'.

It’s the detention at my DCs school 2 hours looking at a wall. No phone or books just silence. There aren’t many who wish to repeat it

This is part of the problem here. You don’t seem to want to discipline your son in any meaningful way. He is learning there are no real consequences for his behaviour.

How on earth can you not know after school detentions exist? Where have you been all your life?

Personally, I don’t think detentions teach anything but that’s not the point. He goes to the school, he’s been rude to staff and has been issued a detention in accordance with their behaviour policy which you have agreed to.

As an ex teacher, the worst thing you can do is say your kid isn’t doing a detention when he clearly earned it. It’s not the school’s responsibility to care about your childcare arrangements. You will have to suck it up, as will he.

I would be shutting everything down, only sport allowed. Box up all electronics and give them back when he is reasonable

Part of the reason after school detentions are given is to inconvenience the parents. Always actually read the policies you signed when you enrolled - they might even do Saturday detentions!

Reach out to the school for parenting support. I think you now recognise you have been lazy with discipline and they will be able to signpost appropriate local support. It will get worse before it gets better but you are capable of making the changes your family needs

Ok well then I’d be teaching him about buses now so that he has that life skill. Assuming he is in secondary school and doesn’t have SEN catching a bus should not be beyond him. In most areas many kids have to get themselves to school on 1/2 different forms of transport, often taking a decent time (my friend’s kids get a bus, then a train, takes them an hour).

If a bus is impossible then a local safe place, like a co-op or a library/ leisure centre is an option until the parents can collect.

Either way the solution is not to give the school a hard time about an after school detention.

This is the problem, you need to have punishment and see it through, there should be no skateboard, BMX, gaming or internet until behaviour improves in addition he sits at the dining table to do homework and any other spare time is taken up with chores, its called punishment.

You could introduce him to the army cadets/ sea cadets get him enrolled and he can learn some discipline there.

From one mum of an 11yo to another - something happens when they turn 11 that makes them nobheads. I’ve been astounded about how suddenly my darling DD’s attitude is rude and combative.

But YABU about the after school detention. I must be around your age and we had them in my school.

@WaryExpert I agree it's overkill to give an after hours detention for a ND kid who struggled to be organised and remember things but this isn't what's happening in the OP.

The child in the op is 11 so pretty capable of catching a bus I am sure.

It sounds like he needs more than an after school detention if that's how he's behaving
But yes
Schools have done after school detention for decades some even do weekend ones which may be more if a shock to your little darling

He's autistic. There is a supermarket nearby but honestly, I wouldn't be happy with him walking there as he'd have to cross some very busy roads. If he got there safely I'd be worried about his level of distress in an unfamiliar environment.

I am aware he needs to learn to use public transport, but it's how to do it. I learned by going out with friends, DS doesn't have friends locally. He's not really in touch with friends from primary school because they all went to different secondary schools. He visited a friend's house once, and only stayed because I stayed and then never wanted to do it again. His lack of independence is a huge worry - but it one amongst a huge number of concerns I have about his future.

DS is 11. But is ND, as is the child in the OP.

"Shafted by mainstream" 🤣🤣🤣

Good behaviour and correct uniform/equipment/homework.

It's not that hard to not get detention.

There needs to be clear and meaningful consequences here. It doesn’t matter how much he protests you need to remove all tech, bmx etc until he treats you with respect. If you don’t sort this out now you will have a nightmare scenario when he is 16 and 6ft tall.

So he hasn't lost privileges for how he's talked to you? Who's he modelling this on? How did he disrespect the teacher in the same mysgonistic way he's spoken to you? What punishment do you think the school should use?

I meant ODFOD

Is he mirroring his dad's behaviour? He sees his dad lose his temper? Do you try and keep the peace, avoid confrontation with his dad to avoid him losing his temper?

I just wondered if he is getting the idea that it is okay to be disrespectful to women generally, and is pushing boundaries to see how far he can go?

After school detentions are a thing at DC’s school. You get an e mail on a Weds, to give notice they have one on Friday afternoon. For more serious offences, they get a Saturday morning detention. DS has only had one Friday after school detention - he wouldn’t dare get another one. His younger sister has never had a detention. She saw the consequences of DS’s and realised it’s really not with it. As well as missing his Friday afternoon sports match, he lost his phone & pocket money for a month and had an earful from me about the huge inconvenience it was to DH & I. It worked very well from my perspective.

Oh, apologies, I missed the bit about him being diagnosed ND.

Correct uniform would not be possible for DS, he would need reasonable adjustments to be made. One of our concerns if he'd had to stay in mainstream was him being being called out for incorrect uniform - it's unlikely every teacher will remember every child who is an exception - and that would lead to EBSA again after all the work we put in to getting him back into school. He won't change his clothes so sport would be an issue.

He can't handle doing homework after being in school for a full day.

Good behaviour is difficult, because what's your definition of it? If DS became distressed in class and was stimming that could be disruptive to the class, but he's not being deliberately annoying.

He could generally manage the equipment, but that's because I check his bag.

@WaryExpert I think that some of the uniform polices in school are ridiculous and ND or poor kids are likely to get unfairly penalised.

For behaviour like the OPs child is showing on the other hand, that is something that's within his control. In the 80s kids like this were dealt with quite effectively using detentions or stronger sanctions if needed. But I can see the unfairness on the parent being inconvenienced if they have to pick the child up.

My DS is at a single sex state school and they hand out detentions like they are going out of fashion, I think they use Y7 to get it in to the boys heads that not following the rules will incur punishment. I don't know if I like it but I kind of get it. 30 boys in a class I'm sure the teachers need to show who's boss.
My son is a pretty good kid and has gotten 3 (2 for being late to class and one for shouting out an answer) and one of his friends has gotten over 20!! It is a very accessible school though so boys walk or bus it.

Detentions are definitely in a lot of secondary schools. Be grateful it’s an after school one. My daughters school are very quick to issue detentions which are for 24 hours - they miss a whole day of learning.