DS2 made to fish bottle out of school toilet as punishment

[citylover]

DS2 is in year 2 and he and a friend put a plastic bottle down the toilet, think his friend then went to the toilet, other kids told on them and they were rightly called to account.

As punishment they were made to fish said bottle out of loo (with latex gloves on).

I am really uncomfortable with this type of punishment and have made my concerns known.

In addition my DS has quite serious anxiety issues around using school toilets which I have been trying to overcome over the past few months. The school are aware of these.

My family, and a childless friend think this punishment is fine ("well he won't do it again will he") which made me think perhaps IABU.

However my gut feeling is it isn't the right way of handling it and crosses a line.

He is generally a well behaved child at school - his teacher confirmed this the other night.

thank you PW fro your kind words. I showed DS

Well, it's true.

Actually, I was quoting someone else earlier with the "rod for your own back" thing. But anyway, it's splitting hairs, and digressing from the GENERAL points we've been making. The OP was the one who mentioned her own son in relation to a sanction the school had seen fit to impose. That prompted a general discussion about children learning social responsibility.
I would take the pfb term to be a general term, including anyone who comes across as being a bit precious about their (firstborn or not) child. And in this case would refer to whoever it was who said that it would be "too upsetting" for a child to have to clear this mess up.

In response to the OP: I wouldn?t see it as a punishment more a consequence of his actions!

FWIW I am very familiar with boys with issues about toilets in school as my DS has issues with this area and TBH I find it odd that someone who serious issues with school toilets was in there playing! My DS would have run a mile (well actually he wouldn?t because he wont go in them! But that?s another story!)

Who do you think should have removed the bottle??

If your child threw litter on the ground, would you not make them pick it up and pop it in the bin?

We dont have a cleaner or a caretaker on site all day so the toilet would have been out of use all day

The OP said she was uncomfortable with the punishment. We still don't know what she thinks the school should have done. And OBM, she may not have "marched into school demanding the teacher was sacked for telling her child off," but she's "made her concerns known" which means she has been into school about it.
And I don't see any posters showing "rage" either. Seems to me like a fairly rational debate.

blimey 10 pages on this!
of course he should have retrieved the bottle from the loo...in fact if it was my 7yr old ds2 I would have handed him the bleach to do a spot of cleaning whilst he was there.

ihate - she thinks the caretaker or cleaner should have fished it out and her ds should have apologised.

As MrsW says not all schools have a caretaker there all day and the cleaners generally come after school.

I too think he has got over his anxiety issues around toilets, given that he was playing around in there.

Citylover said she would expect the cleaner/caretaker to fish it out I think, and to apologise to them.

In our school the cleaner comes in after school, and the caretaker does a couple of hours a week.

I'm intrigued about who retrieved the mooncup.

It doesn't feel as though this is a 'general discussion about social responsibility'. It feels like a discussion about how "this is exactly the problem we're all up against in society."

Anyway, I'm retiring.

to the op.
who does she expect to come along and fish the bottle out then?
the cleaner?
the teaching staff?
or does she expect the bottle to miraculously demateirialise (sp?)

"It is not pleasant to put one's hand into piss. But whereas for an adult, it is (I really do acknowledge) disgusting, for a young child it might (and again, I acknowledge that this is a possibility, not a certainty) be disgusting, humiliating, even traumatizing."

I think using the word 'traumatizing' is going way too far. Trauma is when you're involved in a serious accident, witness something horrific, suffer abuse or suffer some terrible tragedy. By no stretch of the imagination should it be applied to a naughty child being made to face the consequences of his bad behaviour.

We have ascertained that the OP does not think that the teacher should have picked up the bottle

And it is clear that she does not think her son should have

She has not actually spelled out in so many words who should pick up the bottle

As others have pointed out, leaving it until the cleaner came in would have meant that the bottle was left to trouble other children throughout the day. Which might not have helped any toilet issues they may have.

Any issue about hygiene would have been resolved by the latex glove- besides, there is no evidence that cleaners are immune to problems resulting from unhygienic procedures.

I would have been happy to hear that my son had been made to do the picking up, less happy if I had heard the bottle had been left around.

Doesn't seem to be about punishment so much as about clearing up the trouble you have caused. I don't think 7 is so very young (ds just turned 8 and definitely agrees that whoever did it should pick it up).

Out of interest I just asked ds (8) who he thought should pick out the bottle. he said the person who put the bottle in the loo.

But only after he told me that he shouldn't have to, as he was innocent

LOL MB.

I'm sure OBM's DS is perfectly lovely - I certainly wasn't speculating on that.

It's hard to say if all children would do such a thing if all childrens parenting was identical. I think some children are pre-disposed to "experimenting with boundaries" and some arent. Those that are more likely to see what happens when they shoved a bottle down the toilet are probably the ones that need to be made aware that it's not acceptable to do so, and have to see the "conclusion" to their "experiment" to be able to fully appreciate the consequence of their actions. I would imagine that those who are less likely to experiment probably have more foresight or awareness of consequences in the first place and thus dont need consequences to be demonstrated.

Well done the school.

he put it there his responsibility to get out out.actions have consequences.

VeniVidi puts that very well. I don't think there is anything totally shocking in a 7yo experimenting with boundaries, but that is the appropriate time to let them learn the consequences. An 11yo who still thinks that grownups are there to sort out their experiments will be a lot less socially acceptable. 7 is a good age to learn.

That's a fair point VVV. On the flipside, however, it's possible to argue that OBM's DS is lovely because of her non-punitive parenting style (at least in part).

I think what annoys me about this thread is the general assumption that there's really only one way to skin a cat, and that the OP MUST be creating a monster. The self-righteousness has been quite unpleasant.

I don't think the common expectation of a child to remove something he has placed somewhere he shouldn't is demonising (or punishing) the child rather it's teaching good behaviour and self control.

The Foundation stage curriculum for 4 and 5 year olds has the expectations of

Understanding what is right, what is wrong and why
and
Considering the consequences of their words and actions for themselves and others

Yabu he put it there so why should someone else have to take it out?

The mooncup disappeared from view otherwise I would have got it out of course.!! Would not have left it floating in the toilet.

I was gutted that it went out of view cos it meant I had to buy a new one and was in a difficult position at work for the rest of the day.

DS2 is a young just 7 year old, rarely in trouble. Does have an genuine anxiety around the school loo which a couple of months ago was causing him to not want to go to school and causing him to be abnormally clingy when I dropped him off. I had to work very hard to work out a way of dealing with it and it is more or less cracked.

I think what he and his friend decided to do was a split second moment of stupidness rather than pre meditated thuggery.

You will be pleased to hear that he doesn't seem fazed by it at all. I don't think being present in the loos and having a fear of actually using them are necessarily linked btw.

It's all a bit knee jerk and reactionary really isn't it which I know you get on mumsnet due to the 'one dimensionalness'.

FWIW, if we're talking about it I don't think all the ills of society can be placed at the door of not facing the consequences of actions - it is far more wide reaching that that.

eg poverty, divide between rich and poor, breakdown of extended family, UK work culture, Thatcher and the greed of the 90's, demonisation of teenagers, the media, UK attitude to children in general, lack of genuine support for parenting and so on!!

I think that's my last post here. Perhaps it will rumble on.

ps should be placed solely at the door

Not all of us have put this in the context of thuggery, citylover. Many of us have simply pointed out that 7 is a good age to start to take the consequences of your actions and that this does not seem like a harsh or inappropriate punishment to us. My son is only a few months older than yours and I would expect him to do it. And so would he.

Asking somebody to pick up something they threw in the wrong place hardly equals demonisation of young people IMO. Rather it takes the positive view that children can be expected to understand that they need to take the consequences of their actions. We didn't want him hanged, drawn and quartered; in fact, Veni and I specifically said that we could understand how children play with boundaries. And since he took the punishment calmly, it seems he did indeed understand the consequences and it hasn't done him any harm.

I understand that you were worried about his toilet problems at the time, but if he feels confident enough to be in there playing around, then that's hardly likely to be a problem now, is it? I think you are projecting your own concerns from the past onto him now and that is probably not the best thing for him.

I also think it is worrying when you get youngsters like the ones in Martianbishop's school refusing to pick up their own litter "because it's the cleaner's job". Surely you feel happier that he got on with it and didn't say that?

I don't really understand why you suggested to the head that he clean up his wee when he had an accident and overshot, but now say its not OK to clear up after himself when he did something intentionally.

I'd be more annoyed he got told off for having the accident myself.