advice on dealing with school issues?
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advice on dealing with school issues?
| Wed, 11-22-2006 - 12:41pm |
I'm frustrated with my 15 year old right now and not too sure what the best discipline is. I'm a substitute teacher in the high school he attends, and yesterday I had lovely conversations with 3 out of 4 of his teachers. He's been just "off the wall" rude and verbally defiant. One example - wouldn't take his hat off at a teacher's request, so the teacher confiscated it - so my darling boy yelled in his face and made a grab into the desk drawer to snatch the hat back, consequently getting his fingers shut in the drawer. During my talk with him about that event, I could NOT get him to take ANY responsibility - it was all "Mr. D. was completely unfair. He had NO RIGHT to take my hat. It's stealing. And then he SLAMMED my hand in the drawer on purpose!". oy. 2 of his teachers even told me that they WOULD have suspended him yesterday....except for who I am. (Nice of them to extend me that courtesy, but I'm inclined to think they SHOULD have done so). And then this morning he was late for school. I HAVE been waking him up every morning, and usually have to run downstairs and call him about 20 times. Finally, a couple weeks ago, I basically said "Get yourself up, ready and to school or suffer the consequences.". Sounds logical, except there won't be any consequences at school that he'll care about, so tonight I think I need to remind him that the consequence for missing school is loss of tv and Playstation for the evening. So how do you back up your kids teachers, when your kid is in the wrong? And probably MORE importantly... how do you "teach" a child to take ownership of a situation and accept responsibilty for his actions, instead of always just playing the victim?

I would expect consequences at school for the infractions you mentioned and I would expect them to increase with repeat offenses
I think teachers often have to take a stand if they want their kids disciplined at school. The tendency seems to be for co-workers to feel they need to talk to you BEFORE imposing consequences
I would make it clear he was to be treated at lease as strongly as another teen and perhaps even stronger at this point
And then, Id stay out of it for awhile myself. Before going to back up punishment at home, Id give the at school stuff-when consistent-a chance to work
My son lost his hat at school too BTW but no snatching grab was made-your ds probably has a comfort level with teachers that mine doesnt, KWIM? Not bad or good-just is!
I'm not surprised that everyone has been cutting A some slack because of his "issues" - we did the same thing, and after almost a year we decided it was time to stop.
No specific advice for you in this situation but when I read "...how do you "teach" a child to take ownership of a situation and accept responsibilty for his actions, instead of always just playing the victim?" the first thing that came into my head was that I know plenty of full-grown ADULTS who have trouble not playing victim! World is full of victims!
<<If you've had a cruddy life, that might be a "reason" for poor behaviour - but if we just excuse it there is no motivation to change ... and the cycle goes on. >>
I think you've hit the nail on the head here.