After-school club punishment- too harsh?

[ScummyMummy]

Hi.

I'm cross and would be grateful for soothing words from mumsnetters. Alternatively a gentle nudge to say I'm overreacting would be ok!

Basically my 6 year old twins are at after school play club 3 afternoons a week while their daddy and I get our noses to respective grindstones. Their Dad picked them up on Friday and found them doing lines. Apparently they had been swinging from a door frame and had been ticked off thoroughly and this was their punishment. Though we're not big lines fans, especially for younger children for whom penmanship doesn't come easily, the boys had clearly been out of order and rules is rules and all that, so my partner told them off too, there were apologies from chagrined boys to all concerned and home they all went. Matter over- and so trivial that neither my partner or the boys even mentioned it to me.

Until today. When he went to pick them up and found that they were writing lines again. He went over thinking they had been misbehaving again and therefore preparing to do a very cross/disappointed daddy act, only to find that they were redoing Friday's lines "because they weren't neat enough and the writing was too big." Not only that, they had spent the entire play session (over two hours) writing lines. He was shocked but when he challenged the playleader (out of the boys' earshot) she claimed this was a reasonable application of the club's discipline policy.

Am I wrong to be v peeved? I send my kids to this club because it's a PLAY club ffs. Clearly they need to behave themselves but shouldn't each day be a fresh start? And isn't 2 hours worth of lines a tad excessive? And isn't expecting neat writing from a 6 year old just, er, barking mad?

caligula, nobody likes a smart, but can i just whisper that nero was in fact caligula's nephew, the son of his sister agrippina the younger and lucius domitius ahenobarbus.

aaahhh, a bit of gratuitous showing off is very liberating!

I can't imagine anyone would get my ds (nearly 6) to do lines.

Might try it one day when he's really evil tho'

(wouldn't make him redo them, whatever)

pish and tish bossykate, you big show-off, I knew he wasn't his son, but I couldn't remember if he had any kids. Please tell me didn't - what a bunch of nutters they all were! Makes our own dear royal family look so wholesome...

So have you been to the Daily Mail yet, ScummyMummy?!

no, he didn't, he was succeeded by his uncle, claudius, who was in turn followed by nero. nero was the last of the julio-claudians.

wonderful, another opportunity to show off!

we need to take some of the accounts of them with a pinch of salt though - there are no meaty contemporary biographies and what we do have was written later under the patronage of the usurping dynasty.

Now was it Claudius or Caligula who "adopted" Nero though...bk? Mumsnet's answer to Suetonius?

bk you're eagle-eyed to have picked up on that one

lol at this thread turning into a debate on classical family trees!

Well, the grim scumster met with the playleader today and words were had, opinions aired, policies discussed and reviewed and, finally, apologies offered to me and, more importantly, my sons. Apparently one of the play workers was being an arse and it is definitely NOT the policy for punishments to carry over weekends, for lines to be longer than half a side or for them to be redone. Said play worker was spoken to at the staff meeting today and informed that he was out of order. I have suggested they look again at the policy of using lines as the punishment of choice, especially for the younger children. Not so confident that this will change as the playleader is very much of your opinion binkie, but she did say she would consider my arguments and my suggestion of talking with the school staff about other methods of discipline.

Anyway, am happy to have had a genuine apology and assurance that there will be no more two hour line writing sessions for my babies or any of the other kids there. Thanks again for you help and support everyone. Really appreciated,

great.

oh great, scummy, that is good news

Why did Claudius do that? (Or should I start another thread to find this out? )

But isn't this the point to add that were caligula's ds nero it would be SENECA setting the lines? Now do you think he would? Or would he have used the long-boring-lecture discipline technique?

Don't you think it would have been more fun to have Aesop as your tutor? (I have this feeling his charge was not unlike ds.)

Scummy, I am so glad you have a positive resolution. I ran the scenario past our own super playleader and she was appalled after she had stopped shrieking with laughter at the very thought of setting any of her merry band lines. "Helping" the Caretaker sweep the playground is as bad as it gets in SE London!
at being set lines or lectured at by Seneca...
Caligula, Claudius fell further into bad company when he married his own great-niece Agrippinilla (Nero's mother and a thoroughly bad lot by all accounts). Despite the fact that this was an incestuous marriage he went ahead with it as she was the last surviving descendent of Augustus.
She set about alienating him from his own children, especially his son Britannicus, and there are suggestions in Graves and Suetonius that before Claudius was finally poisoned, she was feeding him drugs to keep him under her control.
It did not help that Britannicus was the son of his marriage to Messalina, and was therefore not in favour with his father for much of his childhood. Messalina was unfaithful to him and executed for her treachery (one of her lovers was thought to be planning a coup).

Poor old Britannicus was three years younger than Nero and his card was marked from the day Claudius belatedly decided to start grooming him for succession.

I agrre in a punishment if being bad- i.e not being able to play in a certain area not doing lines that is a bit ott.

And to have them redo them again is disgraceful, when YOU are PAYING for children to be at the club to play.

Again I would challenge the playleader and possibly the commitee members also as this is not acceptable behaviour in an afterschool care club, as per care commision guidelines.

Ask your boys how they feel also about going to this club, what problems are occurring , I am sure they aint the only children who misbehave ALL kids do FACT.

I would look further into this as you are paying for your kids to be punished and not play

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