If your child gets a detention at school, do you punish at home too?

[comeandhaveteawithme]

Just that, really?

My DH says no, detention is enough, but it's clearly not because he keeps getting them for stupid things.

Oh God that must have been horrible for you.

No I wouldn’t punish at home for the things you describe.

Bullying, swearing at teachers I would.

Well it seems that the punishment of no phone has made him realise he better buck his ideas up so I'd do it again every time he gets a detention

In our school detentions are at lunch time and they're not reported. I think DD had 1 ( talking in class) and ds had 2, one for hitting the kid who spent all morning winding him up. Not even sure what the other one was for.

Spoke to both kids about respect, behaviour and how others see them. No punishment.

Bullying, initiating violence stealing would result in withdrawal of privileges at home.

Well if punishment at school is not working why would more punishment make a difference?

Good on you. The old phone trick!

The reprimands for not doing homework is the area that you can influence. Make it a rule that there are no screens and no out door play until homework is done every night.
We made it a rule that there was no home work to be done on the weekends until age 15 too. That really made our kids sort their time out and organise themselves for the week.

Your child is not that fussed to abide rules.
If he improves with the homework due to your insistance he learns that it is correct to follow instructions from school - his parents agree on that front. He needs to respect his teachers' reasonable requests. He is not more special than all the other kids. Don't overlook him being lazy or he will grow up feeling entitled to break rules.

If it was that startling post the other day about a child leading a gang of older children to batter a younger child then… yes.

if it was being late or the odd things I see posted of schools in England around uniform then no. Handled by the people it’s affecting and that’s the end of that

My DS2 hates the ones "messing around" at break. To you your son might be "a nice kid, just likes to be a bit of a clown" but to other students him and his friends might be insufferable. My DS2 tells me about 3 boys in his class who constantly pushes people around in the corridors, squirts water at others at lunch and are just generally a pain to be around even if there is no straight forward bullying of anyone there is antisocial behaviour going on and it's disruptive. Surely you don't think the detentions are only for missed homework and shirt not tucked in?

I would talk to his teacher to find out more and definitely take away the phone for atleast 24 h each time because 1. It will teach him that behaviour has consequences and 2. It won't do him any harm to he without his phone, quite the contrary.

Because they are all addicted to their phones so that's a punishment they want to avoid at all costs.

If the detentions are frequent, I would talk to the SENCO and child together to understand why they are acting out, can they control it, what can be done to help. Why it matters etc
Sitting still and absorbing information for 5+ hours is really challenging for some children and so they cannot easily control themselves or focus throughout the school day.

That makes no sense.
What happens at home has nothing to do with the school (unless safeguarding issues), but what happens at school absolutely does have something to do with home.

My daughter has had a few (Y7) mostly for messing around in class, or being rude to teachers. I got called in a couple of times and fully supported the teacher and the next day, took her phone away for a week.

Last year, some older boys - one in particular targeted her with racist bullying. School didn't do anything, as nobody had seen anything. He used to corner her somewhere quiet and kicked her a few times.

A bruise wasn't enough, as no witnesses, so they treated it as he said / she said.

He got her one day and she punched him.in the mouth, he fell down half a dozen steps, banged his head, bloody lip etc. I had to go in and they wanted to put her on report (get a card filled every lesson for a week). They wanted her to apologise.

I told them that I didn't support the detention, but she would do it. I said that she wouldn't be apologising to a racist bully and that if they gave her a report card, I'd rip it up, rather than sign it.

I agreed that punching him was technically wrong and pointed out that he'd been kicking her and it was self defence.

I suppose that, because I'd supported the school previously, they accepted that I take her behaviour seriously, so they agreed to just a detention.

It depends. If its for defiance or rudeness towards the teacher, then absolutely yes. Not tolerated at all.

However, if its forgetting stuff, being a bit late etc, then the detention is punishment enough.

We've always been clear on the distinction.

Not as a general rule. My boy got detentions all the time. He had additional needs that were not being addressed, so the same situations kept arising and he would often get a detention from one teacher scheduled at exactly the same time as another one, and would then end up with a double detention because he missed one (can't be in two places at once). At one point he owed them 10 hours of detention.

I didn't get involved, I could see it was a shit-show of the schools own making and eventually the situation imploded of its own accord - and he got extra support as a result!

I would discuss with him why he got a detention, what he could have done differently etc., but he blatantly wasn't coping in secondary school for all the reasons I had highlighted to them in advance, none of it was a surprise to me and home was his safe space, I wasn't going to change that.

My son got a lot last year (yr 7) - some for talking etc in lessons as well as messing about at break and 'play fighting' with friends etc. Didn't punish at home to begin with as hoped he'd improve himself but didn't (and seemed to think all a bit of a joke!) so after a bit, we implemented detentions at school = no phone or gaming at home. So double punishment and up to him to decide how to behave and if he wanted gaming etc st home. Also spoke to school as we were concerned about no. of detentions which was v helpful and also showed the school we were taking it seriously which I think helped teachers try and help him stay on track.

Now year above he still gets them sometimes but far fewer and way less for not settling down in lessons which is good...have eased up on punishments at home. if detentions for minor stuff (like forgotten blazer, being 1 min late etc) tend to let him off home punishments, just for more serious stuff or if he gets a spate of them.

Oh that’s on the level of my problem for sure. My daughter has plenty of this sort of kid at school and finds it really distressing. Regularly gets squirted by water bottles when just trying to get to class - they aren’t targeting her, they’re just making it annoying to walk through the halls. I’d come down hard on this nonsense for sure.

Good on you for taking his phone off him and good on him for tucking his shirt in. Now that he knows you will take his phone off of him i bet he behaves. You are a sensible Mum and your son will be better behaved for it.

How old is he? Our school tries to take a fairly no-tolerance approach to this stuff in Year 7 in an attempt to set standards going forward. it doesn't sound like a massively draconian system overall and generally I'm of the opinion that behaviour like this at school is dealt with at school.

However, the problem is that the detentions are not working. so the behaviur is not changing. Unfortunately, the school is unlikely to do anything about that except give him more detentions and, from experience, this can then lead to more draconian punishment. which also doesn't work.

So you have to consider what you can do about that.

It might be that he just doesn't care enough about detentions so some sort of punishment or consequence at home might help.

It might be that there's actually something else going on. DS went from 150 demerits a term (and detention every week) to a total of about 20 for the school year this year and no detentions..... because a) he's now medicated for inattentive adhd and b) he's got a bit older and does not want to waste his time in detention when he can be at the gym with his friends or whatever.

If my kids get a detention, I confiscate phones until a ‘star student’ is awarded. They can be weeks without their phones

uniform breeches

Is he going to school in the 19th century?

I agree
ive nothing against kids being kids, but not when it impacts others
my DS2 wouldn’t even go to the loo at school because of the ‘silliness’ and ladish behaviour. He would be bursting when he got home 😂
I have tried to increase his resilience, but it is REALLY annoying for the kids who are more introverted and not in to clownish banter, or lads being ladish.

however your son isn’t doing it in lessons, which is positive. I think it is hugely disrespectful and selfish, and my DS1 was the sort of kid to do it! He got punished for that, you have to learn to think about other people. DS2 and 3 would often say revision sessions were a waste of time because of all the disruption and showing off. The teacher couldn’t teach, entitled selfish behaviour by kids that has to be challenged

I only have half an answer for you.

Sounds like he needs 2 things, and whether punishment at home fits into them is up to you: 1) motivation to be someone who isn't getting sanctioned at school, 2) tools to avoid the behaviour that ends up in sanctions.

I don't know your son well enough to say what those 2 are - hopefully you can think of something there. Really sounds like he is seeking either approval from friends or some kind of stimulation, but I don't know your boy.

I took DS's phone off him for a month when he got a detention for getting involved in an organised boxing match at school - I was furious about that.

The second one he got was for using the lift at school when pupils aren't allowed to. DD said a detention was harsh because that's usually 'just' a behaviour point. I suspect he got a harsher than usual punishment because the teacher that caught them, actually needed to use the lift because she'd recently had surgery. The last thing she needed was to discover she couldn't use it because of a bunch of Y11's messing about. We had a lengthy discussion about it, but I didn't impose any further sanctions - I still backed the school up completely though.

A bit of a clown?
Irritating then

No because I find the school gives detention for the most nonsensical reasons. I tell mine unfortunately you have to follow the silly rules while you're there but I'm certainly not punishing again at home.

DDs last few detentions were for hugging her friend in the corridor, not replacing tie after PE and accidently spilling her water in class.