Removing reward badges on first pay back as punishment for behaviour in two zoom classes?

[ConcernedAboutRules]

Basically, DS who is normally very well behaved has been playing the class jokester on one or two zoom calls. He has been warned previously for this. Nothing too serious in my opinion. Now teacher has told him to expect to hand over all the badges and special jumper he's earned for various things and that he will no longer be on the school council etc. as soon as he arrives back during morning registration. Am I the only one thinking this is really unreasonable punishment given the situation and the fact he's known as 'the badge kid'?

Am I the only one wondering how this jumper was washed and how all these stickers have managed to stay on for so long? In my experience, school stickers last for about 2 hours before peeling off.

@inappropriateraspberry

Am I the only one wondering how this jumper was washed and how all these stickers have managed to stay on for so long? In my experience, school stickers last for about 2 hours before peeling off.

Tape.

@sadpapercourtesan

He never should have been given ALL of those titles and allowed to develop that identity in the first place. No wonder he has come to grief. He's a small boy who was never going to be able to live up to some weird elevated level of perfection

I would not punish mine at home if this happened. I would take the approach of supporting him to work through what has happened and how he can learn from it and move forward - I would be much more concerned about him not feeling that he's a naughty boy now and there's no point in striving. He's had a horrible, humiliating shock and the most important thing now is scaffolding his recovery from it and building resilience.

Poor little bugger should never have been set up for a fall from such a great height.

Definitely this. I had a similar experience when I was about 6 and I can honestly say it has affected the course of my life- not making me behave badly but utterly crushing any self esteem and making me into the quiet, shy person who is terrified of failure throughout school. So academically I didn't do nearly as well as I should have and was well into my 30s before I started rediscovering and developing my real character (which is someone quite nice but not at all doormat like).

I think a lot of my problems stemmed from actually being too ashamed to tell my parents about what happened, so I never got any support or comfort at the time. Your son does have you to support him, so that's good.

If the teacher really said those things, she should be ashamed, especially telling him explicitly that there's no point in behaving any more. How does she think that will pan out?? The punishment isn't necessarily 'wrong' but has been handled so poorly that it could well have a quite disproportionate effect.

Do support your son and reassure him of your love and regard for him.

You'd tape on stickers everyday?

@ConcernedAboutRules your update confirmed some of my suspicions.

The thing to do now is to move on. If you bang on about how unfair the teacher was and mean and she humiliated him etc ,that's all that's going to register with him. That at the end of it all he's the victim here. Which will do him no favours and won't improve the relationship with the school either.

Fair enough to talk to teacher some more. Entirely your right to tell her how upset your son is and she might decide to improve that.

Do not complain.

All talk with your son should be about how to move on from this. How to gain trust, show with his behaviour that it was a fluke, keep behaving and he will earn things again and it will all be forgotten. It's just a blip in his school life. It's even less of his entire life. Don't let this incident define him .

Ok, he fucked up. He paid the price. He can also make it better and people will forget.

It might have made it more comfortable for your son to have his telling off in private, but the teacher probably didn’t have time for that before the day started, and she was absolutely right to not allow a child to spend even part of the day going about wearing awards and responsibility badges when he’s not only been behaving badly himself, but encouraging others to do so as well.

How would you feel about it if it were your child that was introduced to rude hand gestures and the like for the first time by another child when that child is the one whose behaviour the others are supposed to try and match? It would be completely unfair on the others, and you ah e to remember that the teacher is trying to teach and manage a whole class, and their perception of the events matters too. It might not matter so much if your sons misdemeanour had nothing to do with anyone else, but it did, so the punishment taking place in front of them was appropriate. It does seem harsh because I’m sure it was a horrible experience for your ds, but he’s already gone through it now, don’t diminish it by trying to lessen the lesson he needed to learn.

@multiplemum3

This is a kid who deleted your voicemails and you still believe he's telling the truth 100%? Lockdown has been terrible for so many people and I understand him playing up but he was acting extremely sneaky and knew what he was doing.

Also agree with a pp who said why have you and the teachers allowed him to build himself up to this level of perfection?

About how it happend yes because he was very remorseful I speak to the school at 5:30...

You taped his stickers on everyday and he has other school certificates on his bedroom wall. Who has instigated this you or him? I think putting this much emphasis on school 'awards' at this age was a mistake.

I think you have built up his 'badges' into something much bigger than they should ever have been. This may be a sharp shock, but better now than when he's older and thinks/expects he will always be on top and get away with anything.

should never have been set up for a fall from such a great height

I agree. I think there are lessons to be learned on all sides here - you, him and the school - I agree that he should never have had all those awards displayed so publicly and permanently.

This will all be forgotten about as he gets older though. You just need to work out a way to move forward. Good luck!

NailsNeedDoing

It might have made it more comfortable for your son to have his telling off in private, but the teacher probably didn’t have time for that before the day started, and she was absolutely right to not allow a child to spend even part of the day going about wearing awards and responsibility badges when he’s not only been behaving badly himself, but encouraging others to do so as well.

How would you feel about it if it were your child that was introduced to rude hand gestures and the like for the first time by another child when that child is the one whose behaviour the others are supposed to try and match? It would be completely unfair on the others, and you ah e to remember that the teacher is trying to teach and manage a whole class, and their perception of the events matters too. It might not matter so much if your sons misdemeanour had nothing to do with anyone else, but it did, so the punishment taking place in front of them was appropriate. It does seem harsh because I’m sure it was a horrible experience for your ds, but he’s already gone through it now, don’t diminish it by trying to lessen the lesson he needed to learn.

^^This

Two things.

Either she is well OTT, or you don't know exactly what happened. I suspect the latter.

The badge boy I am not sure this is meant in the endearing positive way you are picturing it OP.

It sounds like she actually spoke to him whilst the other children were in the room but not 'in front' of them. You say that she spoke to him before she had quietened them all down for registration. Most of them are unlikely to have paid any attentions they will have been more interested in speaking to their friends.

And taping on stickers is very very odd!

So is accusing a young child of 'bringing the school into disrepute.' Unless I've misread and he is actually in the Upper Sixth at Eton of course.

Or a character in a Billy Bunter novel.

@SilverDragonfly1

So is accusing a young child of 'bringing the school into disrepute.' Unless I've misread and he is actually in the Upper Sixth at Eton of course.

Or a character in a Billy Bunter novel.

Paraphrase not word for word.

@eyeslikebutterflies

Gosh that's harsh. I don't think the teacher handled that at all well. While he clearly needed to be punished, there's a gulf between appropriate punishment and public humiliation - which is what your son experienced. When you add the fact that the impact of lockdown on the mental health of young children has been very well documented - and is apparently worst for your son's age group - it seems even harsher.

I would speak not to the teacher but to the head, personally. I would start by acknowledging what your son did, and that you support both appropriate punishment and some 'learnings' (such as the letter to the teacher you suggested).

But I would also ask the head for some support in approaching the teacher, so that the latter understands that public shaming is at best counter-productive, at worst damaging to your son's mental health. And then developing a plan to build his self-confidence back up. This could be in a productive way that reflects his 'wrongs' (so he 'earns' his badges back, for example), so that there is a link between what he did and how he can 'improve'.

Poor kid. My daughter is in year 5. They feel public humiliation so keenly at that age, it's something that will unfortunately stay with him for a long time. I do think his teacher has lost all sense of perspective.

I think the teacher handled it quite well. The child came into school still wearing all the badges and stickers and the special jumper ( what a weird thing for a school to do btw) . She asked him to take off the stickers which related to his work and gave him a card to stick them on so he still had them . She asked him to return the badges he wasn’t entitled to wear anymore. He also wasn’t entitled to the special jumper so since he hadn’t brought a standard school uniform jumper with him she asked him to find one in lost property.

The fact that the child came into school still wearing his badges and stickers and thought that a quick “sorry miss” would suffice shows that he hadn’t taken the teachers previous messages seriously and thought he had escaped punishment. She had to make a quick judgement call, make the situation clear to everyone in the class, or allow the child, and the rest of the class , to think that he had got away with his disrespectful behaviour. She made the right decision.

Think you sound like you’ve really taken in what your DS has done so that’s great. I’ve got to say re-wearing stickers after the day is unusual for any class past Reception (in my experience). He got it for being good on that day, not being good on the following days. No wonder he was called ‘badge guy.’ He has obviously got used to being good and this has brought him back down to Earth. Deleting your voicemails from a teacher is pretty calculating!
He needs to learn from this and come back stronger. Maybe he just got complacent and this is the shock he needs before he goes to high school.

Perhaps you should just ask your DS to behave himself and then he wouldn't get into trouble.

Do you really think the appropriate course of action is to take it up with the school? You will definitely be THAT parent.

@korawick12345

And taping on stickers is very very odd!

Tapes them on himself. Certainly not coming from me.

But you could have discouraged or stopped him from taping them on.

@ConcernedAboutRules

So, this is gonna be a long one but turns out DS has been pulling the wool well and truly over my eyes. Yes, I didn’t have a word in time before he went back but for good reason as you will soon see. Turns out it wasn’t just a case of muting him as it was all actually during ‘breaks’ where the whole class was on the software together to socialise. Turns out my former angel DS is no longer as sweet and innocent as I thought, and it’s taken me a few days to come to terms with all. Turns out DS during these breaks has been using some rude hand gestures he’s learned. I am so ashamed. Other kids started copying him at random times i.e. the boys because the teacher initially couldn’t quiet make out what he was doing on the software’s view setting as to what he was doing. Clearly when teacher said he was class jokester she was giving him the benefit of the doubt and every chance given its lockdown. Clearly, I got the wrong idea thinking it wasn’t this serious because the teacher tried to be lenient initially. So as someone said on here while he didn’t throw a chair and spit in anyone’s face wearing a jumper full of stickers and badges, he might as well have. Were clearly more than 2 sessions of acting up and more like 4. Turns out teacher has been leaving me voicemails as my phones off during working out but DS has had ‘problems’ with his phone every night after he came in from school and has admitted he deleted the voice mails I’m mortified he was clearly very embarrassed. He clearly felt untouchable given he wasn’t in school and held in high regard by his teachers. Need I say more?

Just read your updates.

He's an entitled little squirt who irritates his teachers and peers alike and is finally being punished for his behaviour.

Tell him he has made his bed and leave it at that.

I really dont think he needs to be written off in year 5. Support to do well is a better approach (google "kids do well if they can" some idess might resonate whereas others wont be relevant.).