Repeated detentions

[Remmy123]

At the end of my tether really with my son's behaviour at school.

This week alone:

1. Detention fir chatting in class
2. Detention and phone confiscated as it rang in class and should be switched off.
3. Had chewing gum in mouth when walking into a classroom as he couldn't find a bin on the way.

Each detention we are now banning him from his beloved pc for that night.

He cannot have one good week I'm finding it all quite stressful as I am / was total opposite at school I just cannot get my head around why he finds it so hard.

He thinks his teachers hate him and says it's never his fault 😬

He is year 8

Soon he will be out on report I suspect

Any words of wisdom?

Thanks

Constant detentions at school and additional punishments at home. Poor kid. Of course teachers can and do "hate" some kids and once he's in their bad books, it's very difficult to change the pattern ad they'll be singling him out. Why are you punishing him on top of that?!

And I'm a lecturer at a university and I don't get teachers and ho are obsessed with enforcing the strictest of disciplines. It creates a really hostile atmosphere and doesn't make the students participate in class any more.

It's really not the end of the world if he had gum in his mouth. A bit of chatter can easily be stopped with just a stern word. If the phone went off, I would think confiscating the phone until the end of the class would be a more suitable punishment.

What's the point in constant detentions except making the poor kid hate school?

teachers who* are obsessed.

Apologies for the typos

This exactly. An unhappy kid is not a child motivated to learn. That's not to say that he should be rewarded for acting out, only that he hasn't been acting out and hasn't done anything worth punishing. These teachers have no behaviour management skills if this is what they're giving detention for. I can't imagine kids are doing very well in this environment.

Some schools are absolutely zero tolerance on phones. They have to be. They also have to try to be consistent. So if the policy is phone goes off in class = detention then that's the policy.

As for detention for chatting. Some schools have a very clear system of consequences in place and it's entirely possible he'd had more that one warning to stop. Some, even after a 'stern word', or indeed any type of word, will not. Stop. Talking.

Best bet would be to talk to the form tutor/HoY and see if there's anything underlying/additional support needed. My dd won't do homework. Just can't get herself organised and gets bad reports as a result (no detentions at her school. It's a good job or she'd never NOT be in detention). I'm working with her HoY to get to the bottom of this.

@XelaM

And I'm a lecturer at a university and I don't get teachers and ho are obsessed with enforcing the strictest of disciplines. It creates a really hostile atmosphere and doesn't make the students participate in class any more.

It's really not the end of the world if he had gum in his mouth. A bit of chatter can easily be stopped with just a stern word. If the phone went off, I would think confiscating the phone until the end of the class would be a more suitable punishment.

What's the point in constant detentions except making the poor kid hate school?

Not the end of the world when it's in the mouth, no. But it's fucking disgusting when the spit covered lump is then all over your upper leg/clothes because the owner has stuck it just under the table.

The phone strictness will be intended to put a stop to incidences of boys taking nonconsensual images of girls or likely in recent weeks/months to combat idiotic and abusive behaviour towards staff intended to go onto TikTok.

He's attending a very strict school. I'm surprised he has a detention for each of those things. It seems harsh and school are in danger of alienating a boy who is otherwise doing well at school.

I would leave the punishments to school as Detention is enough, so please don't pile on additional punishments at home as well. It's up to school to explain to him that's the rule. You can help him by asking how he might change things so it doesn't happen again.

My DD (middle one) had a bad experience being picked on constantly by her maths teacher, it took a while to believe her and to see (it was true) but I'm glad I did and that I listened

Take it seriously what your son is saying about how it's making him feel and be in his camp. Your teenager needs you

@Remmy123

Thanks all it is very interesting to hear your views.

He is bright and so academically is doing well - just above average from what I can see.

He is easily distracted. Nothing is ever malicious, it's all low-level stuff really. He has a good group of friends, all very well behaved polite boys.

We had banned him from his PC tonight and he got into a right state, along the lines of 'that school makes me want to kill myself'

I've let him have 30mins on there and we had a cuddle.

Not sure whst I shouid be doing as if they are the school rules then they need to be adhered to?!

All low level stuff? Now imagine that x 30 in a class?

So what is the answer then?
I appreciate a class full of low level misbehaving has to be dealt with, but it's fairly obvious that detentions no longer have much effect.

Do you think he might have ADHD? Hard to tell at this age because it could be his age, but it depends if you've had similar problems since primary school or not. DS got lots of detentions in school for being disorganised, daydreaming, being late and not handing in homework. He is forgetful and would have forgotten to put chewing gum in the bin. He was labelled "Bright but lazy". It turned out he had the inattentive form of ADHD. It often gets missed if they're not hyperactive.

@CatonMat

So what is the answer then? I appreciate a class full of low level misbehaving has to be dealt with, but it's fairly obvious that detentions no longer have much effect.

Report; not allowed to be with friends for lunch; isolation; meeting with a school counsellor/or such like; definitely meeting with the school and parents; round robin? In no particular order. Is the work too hard or too easy?

I think my boy can coast along at the level of work given.

He's fairly bright, but not bright enough or bothered enough to worry about detentions.

He actually gets some of his homework done during detentions, which is something I suppose.

The school are confident that it isn't an issue as yet, so I follow their lead.

I think lots of secondaries are like this now. My ds school sounds quite similar. I get it. I imagine it can turn to chaos quickly so they are zero tolerance. Like you said op, it's very low level stuff. I wouldn't punish at home for those things.

I wouldn't add a punishment at home when he has already had a detention in school, especially for this type of low level misbehaviour. I think that's a bit OTT and will only serve to make him resent you. He's "done his time", so to speak, so I'd instead go for a firm chat about possible further consequences if he continues to get detentions down the line.

DD2/3's school has an 'inclusion hub', which is hilarious, as it's where they send kids on internal exclusion. They'd get a tick on the proud card for talking, phone confiscated and proud card tick - or hubbed if they refuse to hand it over. The gum...not allowed in school, AFAIK. Probably a tick on the proud card and instructed to put it in the bin.

The hub caused outrage at first, but does reduce low level disruption. I have concerns that some pupil groups are more likely to be hubbed than others, though, and they don't get their normal learning, they just copy pages from a random textbook.

XelaM
And I'm a lecturer at a university

So how much time have you spent in a secondary classroom (other than being a pupil)?

My elder Dd was exactly like this. She used to get debits and detentions every week until year 9. As long as it was all low level stuff and she was never aggressive/ bullying or rude to teachers then we let the school punishment be enough. She grew out of it and did really well in GCSEs and is now at school sixth form and very motivated and teachers think she's great. So i would say try not to overreact, let the school discipline as it sees fit and there is every chance your DS will grow out of it.

@1099

Op - As an alternative to banning the PC does your son have an allowance, my son is same Yr8 and he gets a bonus at the end of each block (6 weeks basically) if he avoids detentions, he lost it twice in Yr7 but so far this year none (it's costing me a fortune ).

See I don't get this. Surely behaving is the benchmark, whereas excelling should be rewarded. Why reward a kid for not misbehaving?

My friend's grandson got in trouble in school over seemingly small matters, eg a bit of chatting in class, phone on. My friend was fuming on his behalf. I tried to say that sometimes the teachers' complaints sound pretty but it's because the disruption is continual and they can see bad behaviour is getting worse and is leading to big trouble.
She wouldn't have it. Her son tried to discipline him, her DIL undermined him thinking, like my friend, it was all petty nonsense.
By the time he was 15, the police were on his doorstep. Never charged him but his name was now known. At 16 they discovered that contrary to their previous assumption that he was in a gang, he was actually the leader of the gang.

As a teacher, giving detentions just creates more work for myself. I really don't want to give them. But I can see where kids are falling off a path and if it can be nipped in the bud, their future will be so much better. Children are helped in this if the parents back up the school instead of undermining them. Patting the child on the head and telling them the school are in the wrong is so unhelpful. Parents find it difficult to imagine that their child might be behaving poorly so it's much easier to think that it's the school or teacher that's in the wrong than face the possibility it's down to the child. Alarm bells should be ringing over any child that's receiving multiple detentions. A detention doesn't come out of the blue - the child will have been told about the behaviour many times before.

I've taught in universities, FE and schools. You cannot in any way compare discipline in a university with that in a high school. Anyone who thinks that has had very limited experience out of university.

@madisonbridges
It sounds like ‘Eric, or, Little by Little’

@DaftVader42

Also agree the detention is the punishment , you might not need to add to it.

This. It all seems quite minor to me, and it's his time that is being wasted by the detentions.

The school will contact you if they are really concerned but this just seems like low-level nonsense to me.

And no. this sort of behaviour does not generally lead to kids joining/leading gangs and getting into trouble with the police!

A detention doesn't come out of the blue - the child will have been told about the behaviour many times before

depends on the school - ds' school used to give detentions for everything. He got about quite a few in Y7 and then they trailed off as the kids grew up and toed the line.

When I was at school you just got told off for the sort of behaviour the OP has mentioned (maybe not the chewing gum - I think they would have come down like a ton of bricks on that but only because they didn't want mess around the school and considered it "cheap"). It had to be quite serious to even get a lunchtime detention (eg not handing homework in for the same subject more than once) and it was massively scary if you got a Friday night detention (I don't think I knew anyone who did).

I would stop explaining to him about the rules and instead ask him to explain to you how he was responsible for his own actions.
If he says he doesn’t know, ask him to sit on his bed for 15 minutes and reflect. As soon as he tells you how he was responsible then praise him for being mature and taking responsibility, reassure him that you’re sure he will learn from this and not make the same choices again, and move on.

Work on that aspect. The whole “it’s not fair chewing gum isn’t a problem” argument is pointless. Reiterate that you aren’t asking for his agreement with rules, you are asking for his compliance. He is allowed his opinion after all.