What consequences for this bad behaviour?

[mamateur]

DN has lived with us since September and his behaviour has improved a lot generally. But I just had a call from his English teacher who says yesterday he:

Walked into the classroom chanting teacher's going to get the sack. Just him, not a class thing.
Got his phone out in class and when told to put it away said no, he wanted to play the games.
Was told to stay behind after class so teacher could talk to him and a couple of others. Walked off.

These seems quite isolated, she said he is usually really good.

We were thinking of docking a week's pocket money but frankly his gran gives him so much it won't really hurt. I also want to take away his computer time but it's in his room where he does his homework.

Any ideas?

Confiscate the phone for a few days. If he can't use it responsibly, and all that.

erm, surely it is up to the school to punish bad behaviour in school? tehy can't ring you every time he misbehaves and tell you to sort it out.

if it was me i would be asking teh school what they are doing to punish it and then i would be having a chat with him about why he behaved liek that. IMO having a cause and efefct punishment is far more effective than jsut a random non related punishmnet like taking away pocket money.

so if he was rude to the teacher, taht requires an apology.

if he took his phone out in class that means he missed the lesson, he needs to make up taht lost time, get notes from teh teacher and make sure he knows all taht was missed. you can quizz him on this and the teacher can set him a homework to check. (although taht is extra work for the teacher when she wasn't teh one in teh wrong)

and yes, remove the phone. taht is an effect of his behaviour.

sorry I wrote a long reply and the internet ate it..

So, I think the reason they're contacting me is because we had a meeting with them a couple of weeks ago about the lack of communication. The teacher gave him a detention today, he spent her english class in a separate room. I'm not sure how missing English is a deterrent but hey.

I had a talk with DN and he said he feels pretty stupid that he said what he said but he was just messing around and didn't mean it to be overheard. He has promised me he will apologise to her tomorrow. He's lost one weeks pocket money and has no internet for till Sunday evening except for supervised homework.

I can't take away his phone because he talks to granny (who brought him up) about three times every evening so that would be pretty mean.

Hi MaryZ. Can you believe granny gave him booze on Christmas day! Grrrrrr.....

Can't he use your landline instead? If he can't use his phone appropriately, then he should be allowed to have it.

I agree with the others, that this should be being punished in school.

Is he allowed to have his phone in school? Many schools I know of ban them.

Are you on wireless network? If so, shut his internet off at a particular time every night. That way it doesn't matter if his laptop is in his bedroom, he won't be able to access internet anyway!

He's never nicer than when he's been told off. It's bizarre!

This evening he was very sweet, even bathed the baby.

We have his internet programmed so we can switch it off at 10pm when he's supposed to go to bed. Now it's just switched off permanently.

Until now we haven't had a landline, but it's actually coming tomorrow. Phones have to be out of sight at his school. I'm going to ask him to leave it behind if he can't resist the temptation of the games.

Maryz, he is doing well, he gets a bit defensive when being told off but doesn't retreat to his room. We talked a lot over dinner, I was just worried that the sudden downturn in his behaviour was due to something else, but it appears not.

Perhaps you just feeling more confident in his relationship with you and more able to test the boundaries.......

I hope he starts weaning himself of grannie a bit more!

Amen, Cargirl!