14 yr old DD excluded for 10 days for fighting.

[kansasmum]

My 14 yr old got into a fight with another girl- I say got into a fight- but it was my DD who turned it from verbal to physical. She lost her temper and hit this other girl.
I feel I have completely failed her- she is a bright girl who is is more interested in being popular and the class clown than doing well. Happy to coast by doing the minimum but this is something new.
She has not been brought up with violence- we have never hit her (I am a shouter not a hitter!).

Anyway 10 day exclusion now- how can I get her to see the seriousness of this and get her to turn things around. The other girl has spent the whole of last week winding DD up and spreading mean lies BUT this is NO excuse for DD turning violent.
Dh wants to force her back into Tae Kwon Do- she stopped when we moved back from the US but was doing well with her belts and had done well at State competitions- she says she will refuse to go. She posted on FB that she was glad she had done what she did (egged on by her friends's"Good for you "type posts). I asked her to delete them from her FB but she point blank refused. She has sneaked into ED's room to get her laptop- was furious about this.

She knows what she did was wrong but states she hates this girl for spreading lies and she deserved to be hit.
I am so ashamed of her behaviour and feel a total failure as a parent. I want to look into anger management for her and she has said she is agreeable to this- but part of me thinks she is just saying "Ok I will go along with it to shut Mum up". At various points over the last few days (this all happened Friday) she has been crying and saying she sacred herself getting so angry etc but I am not sure if she REALLY gets how serious this is.
Have told her this is it now- she puts one foot out of line again and she faces being expelled- she doesn't seem to understand how serious it is.

I feel at a loss to know how to deal with her. We have done this- taken phone and laptop away, grounded etc and she would be doing extra chores but she and the rest of the family all have some horrible stomach bug and she's been up all night throwing up and her and dh are both flaked out with temps!

I do admit to feeling embarassed by this too- although I know I shouldn't care what people think- I haven't told my parents even- I am ashamed and feel I have failed.
I have a good friend who I have told and she is very supportive but any advice or tips would be much appreciated.
Thans for letting me ramble.

10 days is a very big exclusion, I would expect 2 days for this kind of offense to be honest, maybe 3. What is she usually like in school?

Regarding the Facebook thing, does she have form for bullying? What are her friends like?

As mary said, this isn't your fault. However, she is clearly b=very angry and needs to figure out why.

I agree that 10 days is too long - DS was excluded for 5 days for a similar incident, which we were told was the norm. You can contest this. In the letter that you received about the exclusion there should have been an advisory telephone number to call, a voluntary agency, but I can't remember what they were called. I found them really helpful and it was great to just talk it all through with someone sympathetic and non-judgemental. After the first day she should be given work to do, I had to go into school to pick it up.

My son also does TKD which was to improve his self confidence - hence he is not afraid of attacking another boy as he knows how to handle himself, so not necessarily a good thing.

My son had anger management counselling at school which they arranged, I never got any information about it as everything that was said was confidential, I can't really say if it helped or not, they change as they grow up anyway.

From September 2010 to Christmas my 15 year old son had 4 school exclusions ranging from one internal day to 5 days mainly for intimidating behaviour towards teachers (verbal and aggressive). He was basically hanging round with a very bad crowd and was playing up to them.

He didn't have any anger management problems nor ADHD or anything like that which some pupils do and the school work with them.

He was also excluded in January 2010 for smoking cannabis in school.

We had a really terrible year with him to put it mildly and I never told anyone about the exclusions as I was so ashamed. I don't think I ever will.

He is in Year 11 now and only has around 4 months to do in school and he seems to be really calm and focused. We even at one point took him out of school as school was the major problem but the head forced us to send him back. We just couldn't take the stress of it anymore.

After the first exclusion for cannabis he went back with a terrible bad boy attitude as I think he thought he had a reputation to keep up.

The work he was given was basically a standard pack they give to everyone in the same year group for English and Maths. I don't think they even bother to mark it. The last time he was excluded I had to ring his teachers to get them to send some meaningful work home towards his GCSEs. Luckily my husband was off work at the time so could supervise him.

10 days does sound very harsh but if it was a full blown attack on another pupil rather than a straightforward fight, then some schools just won't tolerate it.

3 girls at my son's school got expelled last year after they ganged up on one girl and beat her up.

We have an absolutely triple zero policy with my son now - it he steps out of line and we get phone calls home about him he gets absolutely NOTHING.

I really don't think this is what has done it though - some teenagers go through a very difficult time for whatever reason (even more so for girls with hormones I should imagine) and just have to work it out of their system. Some can't even explain their behaviour. Unfortunately it is very difficult and stressful for the parents but most teenagers get there in the end.

I just take it one day at a time with my son.

There is a new Headteacher so I think the length of exclusion is partly him making it clear he won't stand violence which I understand. She is going into the 6th form bit of school 11-5 every day next week and will have supervision from a teacher while she does set work.

She is calmer, more remorseful and doing her set work without any problem so am hoping she is seeing the error of her ways.
Am looking into anger management for her.