Sure teacher is lying, but can't prove it

[Chew33]

My 12 year old son received a detention (c2) for talking in class. He is usually as good as gold and gets great feedback, so this was very unusual. He said he got this with no verbal warning or c1, which is the procedure they're supposed to follow. He said she shouted c2 whilst pointing at him from across the room.
I challenged the procedure not being followed. The teacher emailed me in response with a completely different version of events. She said he'd had several warnings, then. C1 from her, then a c2 from the librarian! My son has admitted he was talking too much, but is adamant her version was no where near the truth. He even checked with one of the kids after the fact, who agreed.
I know when my kid lies. He goes bright red and its so obvious atm. I know he's telling the truth, and I'm disgusted how he's been treated. I think she just lost her temper and knows she did wrong. The detention itself was very short and never recorded in the system. He said she just said as this is your first strike and you're usually so good let's let this one go.

So I emailed back expressing i understood his talking was unacceptable, however I was very concerned about the difference in recalling events. She's doubled down and said her report is accurate.

Do I let this one go, or not? My gut is telling me she's definitely lying, but I don't know what to do or its worth pursuing further.

In this busy world how do so many parents have so much time to keep going backwards and forwards requesting more information, more meetings etc with teachers? Just give it a rest.

I think a lot of it is being able to sit behind a key board and fire it off with anger etc without actually thinking it and a proportionate and appropriate response through (which in this case would simply be to deal with the DS’s disruptive annoying behaviour, not email the school about some perceived procedural issue). If parents had to wait and then make an appointment to have a call or meeting with the school office I think a lot of this would disappear.

It's interesting that people think reachers don't lie. They do, just like adukts in any other profession lie.

OP, I know where you're coming from because I encountered similar with my child. It wasn't detention related and wasn't a teacher but an adult in a position of trust. They made my dc do something and later said they hadn't. I challenged what they said but finally told them I knew their main objective was to care for my child. So I didn't have to say I believed their account of events.

Don't pursue it but just make a mental note of it in case a similar thing happens again.

And I agree with you that some of us parents are lucky enough to have the ability to tell when our children are lying. Just because those that have different experiences refute this, doesn't make it any less true.

Ffs you have a tenuous grasp of what is and is not within your knowledge. You cannot possibly know what procedures were or weren't followed in the school because you weren't there. Believing that you know the teacher is lying is a delusion. Have you ever been to a trial? Where people try to establish what happened? And each side gives as much evidence to support their version of events as they can and then a jury decide which version is most likely? Do you know why they do that rather than just go to one random person involved and say 'oh this random person knows that someone else is lying so they must be right'? Your 'evidence' is hearsay at best, total conjecture at worst and wouldn't even be admissible in court. So think about that for a few minutes.....

Your first post indicates differently. People are giving you a hard time as you acknowledged that your 'good as gold' son had been talking too much but were disgusted by the way he is being treated and his account is absolutely correct. At the core of it, he has admitted he was not following school rules. You seem annoyed that he was getting punishment for this on a 'technical glitch.'

I am a teacher and have had a few instances this year were children who 'don't lie' have given their parents heavily edited versions of events. Then parents have come in with a gripe and made the situation far worse. On all these occasions another child has backed up their events. As our school now says to parents like this, you either trust the school or you don't, if not then move them to a school you do trust. Funnily enough, none of them have.

Thank you!! I think my post was badly written. At no point did I give my child any indication he could get away with his behaviour.

This 100%.

However, even your son has said he was talking so he did deserve the detention. He was probably talking to much he didn't hear the first warning. Maybe this detention will make him think twice about talking next time.

I'm glad you've recognised your overreaction, and good on you for admitting it here. The responses must have been a hard read for you.

But yes, a teacher with thirty children in front of her is multi tasking to a degree that would be hard to imagine in most jobs. Making an error is possible, but after a day of managing and teaching up to 150 different children and making thousands of micro decisions, her recall of what was a minor event will not always be accurate.

Your child now has carte blanche to behave however he likes, because you didn’t back the teacher, and therefore the school.

I wish parents knew that they aren’t helping their children when they back up their poor choices. Best case scenario, your DS stops talking in class. Worst case, his behaviour deteriorates now, because you backed him and not the teacher.

In that case, develop a blanket policy of being mostly totally disengaged regarding school. It will improve your MH too.

Both my parents were totally uninterested in my schooling. It was my problem to solve. Mum was ill and Dad was trying to keep it all together so was always at work. They never went to anything school related. Parents evening, sports day, plays - nothing. Showed no interest in homework. Didn't care if we did it or not so we had to self regulate. I am a very resilient and resourceful person.

My bestie had parents that were practically absent. Her father was in bed 90% of the time and her mother was abroad. A neighbour looked in now and again and did her washing. She is the most resilient person I know and has done some amazing things in the world.

For some aspects of our childhoods, we probably should have been taken into care but it was the 60's and 70's. Both of us have has serious shit to deal with and it rolls off us like water from a ducks back.

Do less for him, not more. He will work on himself if you are not working on him.

Ah, sorry didn’t RTFT. Well done, OP, it’s great that you took time to reflect.

I think you just need to let this one go, that’s a lot of angst and arguing for a detention he’s already done. It’s not that big a deal. My daughter got a detention for talking to herself! She went and we just laughed about it. This is honestly not worth your energy.

No he doesn't. He attended the detention and got told off at home. At no point have I indicated to him his behaviour was acceptable.

Honestly, just try teaching for a day.

I’ve been doing it for two decades and it still exhausts me. My classroom management is excellent, my lessons are great, but I’m now in a role where I deal with parents, and their lack of perspective astounds me on a daily basis.

I have to sort out a situation next week where a parent wants a completely bespoke school experience for their child, and to be able to change it at a moment’s notice depending on the child’s mood that day. That child might control his entire household, but we cannot let him control our curriculum, provision, staff and ethos.

I'd go higher than that

Jesus, the poor teacher. Let this go. There will be no teachers left in the profession soon to worry about these things. Your son was talking, he got a detention, move on. I can assure you with all the subsequent fuss this teacher regrets catching him talk! I am a teacher. This is partly why the job is becoming unsustainable. Respect her and let her do her job. I can't even begin to explain how children are being negatively affected when parents react like this. Lack of resilience, lack of respect for authority etc. I can't even go into it!

I've never felt so sorry for teachers as I do after reading this threads opening post.

Re lying: At my school we run some sessions about dealing with friendship issues, it’s part of a widely used scheme. One of the sessions is about the fact that when adults try to help we can sometimes unintentionally make things worse. One scenario involves role-playing an incident in school and then the different characters going home and talking to their parents, inevitably each character has a very different spin on things as they all try to present themselves in the best light. Then the parents try to help but all are acting on partial information. The next task involves asking the children if they they themselves sometimes lie to their parents and they all say they do - they then have a general chat and it’s things like - I say I’ve finished my homework, I say I had salad for lunch, I say it wasn’t my fault, I don’t tell them about a test… And we adults all did this too - and probably still do!

Well, that's a start.

Now, sit down and write an email to the teacher for being as much of a pain in the arse as your son. Do it as quickly, as you were to write your first foolish email.

If you don't like the free education that is being provided to your son, keep him at home and provide him with one yourself.

You sound very keen on having a classroom situation followed as if it was a court of law. If you encourage your child to disobey, then you will have plenty of experience of this in later years when he is in either an employment tribunal or an actual court of law.

I would say, when you have written your email of apology give your son a swift kick up the arse and ask someone to do the same to you but doubtless that would cause a general outcry, more's the pity!

Sometimes people don't hear the warnings for talking because they're so busy doing so!

I can't fathom why schools give parents teachers' email addresses. It should be form tutor / Head of Year only, and they should be completely empowered to simply ignore trivial complaints.

So he normally gets away with talking in class because he isn’t the worst culprit, but this time he didn’t. He knew he shouldn’t have been talking and he did it anyway. He didn’t need a first warning - she would have made it clear to the whole class that she wanted silence, and he decided that it didn’t apply to him. You both need to suck it up, and you need to tell him that he doesn’t need two personal reminders to do what the teacher has already asked the whole class to do.

How do you know you always know when they’re lying? You only know about the times you know about! There might have been other times when you never saw or discovered the lie.

Poor expectations, low aspirations and a terrible future. I’d raging if either of mine had behaved like that. What do you want for your child’s future? Someone who has self discipline and control and achieves their goals or another yob.

I couldn’t get worked up about this. It's only a detention after all, he’s not facing a firing squad. And he did knowingly break the rules.

Btw I’m sure your son is generally a good kid, but I can assure you, even if you really can tell when he’s lying now, there’s going to be a time in the near future he will lie to you with absolute confidence and you will none the wiser.

Quite - the best outcomes for kids happen when the parents react with disappointment and ask to let them know if it happens again so they can reinforce at home and ask us to keep sanctioning at school. Some parents also insist that child apologises.