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.

So…it’s always ‘been a thing’ OP - you clearly went to a school that didn’t impose them, but they’ve always happened.

Your son sounds troubled…not sure one single detention will be enough to snap him out of his negative behaviour. Could you make an appointment with the school to have a chat about the wider picture here? They may be able to support you 👍🏻🤞

He's a teenager. 100% normal.

Okay well I hope you can get to the bottom of it. Hopefully the experience of after school detention will make him think twice about behaving like this to his teachers. It’s almost worse that he’s targeting certain people because it shows that he very much can control his behaviour but chooses to be awful to some people.

ADHD will lead to trying to shock to get a dopamine rush.
Screens are a privilege he earns, not a right.
(parent of child with ADHD - I always recommend ADHD Dude on YouTube or he has a podcast called ADHD Guys).

To be violent towards your mum and call her a fucking bitch? No it isn’t. Plus he’s 11 and not a teenager.

I think you need to make it his problem that he can’t get home if he misses the school bus due to detention. Even if that means that he has to sit outside the school gates for a hour or 2 until you have finished work.

I'm not blaming the teacher at all. I don't know how you got that.

My kids school have always done them after school and they're always on the same day too. I complained once because they never even used to notify the parents, so you had a nice 45 minute panic that your kid had gone missing on the way home from school. Thankfully they now send a text. I'm fairly bemused when it comes to school rules tbh, but I don't really mind detentions tbh, they're usually warranted at my kids school (being late for example, although, granted, my kids walk to school, I'd be a bit more pissed off if they were getting DT's for being late due to public transport etc)

DD also almost certainly has PDA also, attending CAHMS but symptoms are 100% consistent. We've gotten better, her behaviour has gotten better since we realised this... Disciplining never worked (in the past year, when she started behaving this way). Taking away stuff, cancelling sleepovers etc... Annoying and unfair to her brothers but have to parent her differently. She cannot STAND (for example) to be at school less than the earliest possible time, so now goes by herself (600m away). I can only imagine the teacher change has been very disruptive for your son. My experience (not a psychologist, just a parent) has been ... de-escalation.. threats and bribes don't work! (the latter a once off but makes things worse in the long term).. Anyway, best of luck.. (p.s. CAHMS did help...)

Yes, totally normal that detention should happen after school. If his behaviour is deteriorating you do need to put in better boundaries and sanctions - he respects his Dad but not you? Why? I actually think being rural makes this easier - if I remove my kids’ phones they really are stuck - they can’t just pop out to a mate’s place…they also need to ask for a lift to get places so if they don’t behave politely/respectfully I can say no and again they’re stuck… However I also don’t think a spiral into constant berating & punishment is good, positive reinforcement needs to happen too!

His issue isn’t with you alone, he’s been rude enough to a teacher to warrant a detention. You should be extremely disappointed and embarrassed by his behaviour. You really are minimising how awful his behaviour is. The detention is supposed to inconvenience you until you start ensuring he behaves, step up and be a parent. You both working full time or living rurally are not excuses for not parenting your child properly.

it does typically present around that age when hormone start to change (not a doctor or psychologist but have had MANY conversation re my own DD in the past year).. with girls apparently though it's 'masked' at school, with boys that is not the case..

You need to find out if the new teacher is a woman before you confidently state that.

If it's a massive change in his personality and sudden then you can't be ruling things out without knowing for sure.

If the teacher is a woman then you need to work out where the influence is coming from.
Has your checks on his phone and social media given no clues?

Just for the record, are addressing his behaviour towards me, going down many different avenues. I won't detail them all but I really am not leaving it to the teachers as some have implied.

Then he should probably refrain from telling the teachers to fuck off

I am constantly stepping up and being a parent but it's bloody hard when you get spat at, kicked, name called and flinch when he approaches you. I am not just letting this slide.

I never said that he told a teacher to fuck off. He missbehaved in their class whereas his normal teacher he hadn't.

many, not all? So...not sure what your point is..

Your school was kinder than most then 😍

I was at school in the 60s and our parents were never informed of a detention. Not sure if this was the norm though, or whether my school were particularly blasé about it. Also, 60s parents were (on the whole) totally supportive of school discipline. So much so, that most of us got double punishments, by far the easiest of which was the detention! 😂 My parents (as most) dished out much, much worse than an hour picking up litter or writing lines 😱

after school detentions were a thing at my high-school in the mid-2000’s.

Depending on the teacher on detention duty that day, it would either be sitting in a room staring at the walls for an hour, or they’d find you shit jobs to do like emptying the bins in the classroom, PE teacher would get you to organise the equipment store.

Yes definitely, the parents are aware of the detention so they punish how they want at home.

Have you watched Adolescence?

Do you know what he’s viewing on his phone?

if you both work full time when do you ever get to sit down and have a real conversation to ask him how he is, how he truly is? Or do you just assume everything’s fine because he says nothing? Or, “I’m fine”.

It’s a skill to get some kids to open up and parents often don’t take the time.

They leap in with taking the phone away or grounding, never really getting to the bottom of what is really going on.

Talk to him, properly. Find out what’s going on. There’s so much more to this.

And if you really want to help, talk to the teacher involved. They didn’t give him a detention for fun. Something happened. Find out what’s your son is doing. There are two sides to every story. Work with the school instead of questioning on Mumsnet if they’re an appropriate punishment.

Also you need to teach your DS that pushing women is unacceptable and that he is not allowed to touch women in this way. Especially women in his family. Is this how he’s going to treat his future wife?

If he does it again, tell him you’ll call the police. How do you think domestic violence starts. Someone, somewhere, doesn’t teach boys that grow into young men, that violence towards women is not ok. Your DH also needs to step up and tell him how men behave and it’s not pushing women around.

i think OP has said up thread it's likely a ND issue, not the new teacher as such.. I used to scoff at the new ND trend... until one of my children presented.. and then i was like.... oh, so this is what they mean😥

But all that "petty" stuff leads to hours of wasted teaching time dealing with morons who forgot their pen etc. Detentions are a good way of encouraging them to not be morons.

Be on time, with your equipment and correct uniform and don't call the teacher a bitch. It's not difficult.

Absolutely this.

Our schools give detention for the day AFTER. Parents have advance warning, it's a good system. I think after-school detention on the same day are a bit tricky, especially if the older kids are responsible for younger siblings at home.

God forbid school try to show kids that actions have consequences.