My Daughter phoned me at lunchtime to tell me she has been given detention for burping in the canteen at school

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She has told me she was sat at the table talking with her friends eating her lunch when she happened to let out a tiny belch. She thought nothing of it carried on talking to her friends when a teacher on a table by them then turned round and asked them which one of you burped . My daughter who is in year 7 said it was her the teacher then told her off and before she left to go outside with her friends handed her a detention for tomorrow lunchtime because she didant say excuse me . I am fuming right now and want to phone the school as this is ridiculous . Anyone got any advice ?

Burps and farts are not bad manners. Despite the well behaved bodies of most MNers, in the real world, unpleasant bodily noises happen. Your stomach might also start singing to itself.

There is a taboo around bodily functions which has meant that people feel that they have to apologise for doing them.

People laugh because they are embarrassed.

And here I thought that causing any avoidable unpleasantness to someone elae WAS bad manners

If people can't control their "wee's" and "poo's" then they may also need to seek medical attention. I believe it's known as incontinence.

Francis- don't forget the other one, that she didn't know she was expected to say pardon me, despite apparently always saying it at home.

Tell her to suck it up and use manners next time.

Hopefully people can control their wees and poos in the school canteen.

I don't think OP's has changed her story at all; she has been entirely consistent - others have speculated regarding the details of what happened one way or another.

I take it you never fart ever, at all, Frances, albeit silently?

How do you avoid inflicting it on others if you are not in a position to rush out of the room when it is about to happen?

Yes we all burp but she should say "excuse me" automatically. Maybe detention will make her think about her apparent lack of manners

^'How do you think?

(Clue: it's not difficult)'^

It wasn't a rhetorical question - I honestly don't know. Telling someone it's not difficult is not very informative. I really would like to know!

It sounds ridiculous but tbh I think she has to suck it up and just do it.

This thread will be full of posters saying how teachers never are vindictive and parents are reactionary. Kids certainly moan too much and lie. Parents often go OTT but I have come across several utterly horrible teachers who were vindictive and bullying.
That is unlikely to be the case here though!

I think you've heard your DD's version of what happened, I'm guessing there was a little more to it than that.

I'd be inclined to trust the teachers' reaction, if detention was given then I'm guessing she was acting disrespectfully and was rude.

I wondered why i keep missing out on jobs. I hadn't realised farting openly was a no no in interviews.

Luckily, that has never happened. But I have been in other embarassing situations where it has not possible to avoid. Not given it much thought until yesterday, but a foolproof way of avoidance would be appreciated.

OK, perhaps Secondary Education is not really the place to go into details regarding bodily functions.

I would never trust a teachers reaction, but would believe my child over everything. I don't know what schools most people went to but the teachers who taught me were on the whole vile , nasty sarcastic people. My DD has got a teacher now who actually takes his socks off in class to cut his toenails!

RunWalk, she has just sucked it up and done it. But she was upset about being in trouble - especially if she has never been in trouble before and has now blotted her copybook in her new school. The teacher probably wasn't being vindictive - she may even now think she over-reacted but once she issued the detention she couldn't really backtrack.

JustSpeak, OP has already said that she checked what happened with the form teacher who confirmed her DDs version of events.

Whether she meant to or not, was rude or not, I would tell her to just suck it up and do the detention. It won't do either of you any favours by fighting the cause.

I also agree that teachers can be ridiculously petty sometimes. I remember when I was in year 10 I was putting pens in my pencil case a couple of minutes before the bell rang and my history teacher gave me an after school detention. She had made no secret of her instant (and completely unjustified) dislike of me and was dying to nail me for something. Looking back it was all wrong as she didn't inform my parents that I had an after school detention, and I'm guessing, didn't log it with the school. I just turned up and did the detention without a word. 2 years later I turned up in her A Level class, where she realised I was a diligent and hard working pupil and I think she did feel a bit bad about it as she was very nice to me from then on and even had a few tears when the class presented her with a present at the end of our exams.

As sonlypuppyfat said

It also know my children and know when they are telling the true or a lie and I would normally believe them. It is true that there are also nasty teachers as there are good ones.

"A teacher now who actually takes his socks off in class to cut his toenails! "This is disgusting. Can you complain? or are all in the school like that including the Head Teacher. What sort o manners and respect is showing this to the children.

I've told my DDs form tutor at parents evening but she just seemed embarrassed! ! Also all her ATLs in all her lessons are 1s and 2s but his lesson it's 4 he's a joke he really is