Parents, what do you think of this punishment?

[IMGONNABE40!]

Many of you were kind enough to respond to my thread yesterday about DS 11 who had an A average on all language arts tests and quizzes but will be getting a D for the final quarter due to failure to turn in assignments (which BTW he had completed).

The shock is wearing off and DH and I are working on punishment. School is out next Friday and next week will be for field trips, student appreciation day and the like. Basically, the grades are in, but school is in session for another week. DH and I are planning to keep our son home for student appreciation day (they make a really big deal out of that at his school) and have him come to work with me and either do busy work for me or start on his summer workbooks. We are also coming up with some type of assignment which will be ongoing during the summer which will hopefully teach/encourage him to be more organized to help avoid this problem next year.

What do you think of keeping him away from school for student appreciation day, and any ideas on what we can do with him during the summer to help with organization. Or do you think having us codify our expectations along with consequences for failure to meet the expectations is all we can really do?

 

[gymnasticsmom68]

What do you think of keeping him away from school for student appreciation day,

I think it's a bad idea. He missed a couple of assignments, not the best thing, but not the worst thing either. To take away the 'appreciation day' would take away all the GOOD work he did all year.

ETA..if you want to take away something, take away a field trip.

 

[alabamaalan]

I have to agree. I would still let him attend the school activities and just make him do some schoolwork over the Summer.

 

[DukeStreetKing]

I would let him go to the appreciation day but stick to the rest of your plan. The grade thing will be forgotten soon but keeping him away from a big event like that could cause some long-term resentment on his part.

I learned the hard way not take too many things away from my daughter when she was getting punished. Sometimes less is more.

 

[Pam]

I'm with gymnasticsmom - I would not keep him home from school.

If you're looking for punishment - I would take away TV, video games, going to a friend's house, etc.

If you have a university or college close by, could you check into seeing if any of the summer students would be interested in earning extra $$$ by working with your son and teaching him how to become more organized? Sylvan might also have a program that will teach him these skills.

 

[CBRorBust]

I would have loved to skip school and go to work with my parents when I was his age!



I agree with the rest of the stuff though!

 

[C.Ann]

Keeping him home on SAD is far too harsh - however, I really like the assignment idea!

 

[CajunDixie]

What do you think of keeping him away from school for student appreciation day

I highly doubt the school would agree with your punishment. You need to punish him on your own time....not the school/teachers time.

 

[zurgswife]

DITTO....

 

[FroggyinArk]

imho let him go to appreciation day,, then have him do a 1/2 hour orso's school work type stuff or organizational skill training every day this ummer.. use a positive reinforcement, get the work done before tv timwe or video games etc.

 

[Wonderlandmom]

WHAT is Student Appreciation day?

 

[HollyJoy]

I don't think it's the best thing to do either. You're saying he has ALL A's except for ONE? I think he DESERVES to be appreciated. Of course the issue of not turning in his assignments needs to be dealt with, but I don't think that having him miss Student Appreciation day will do the trick. You may just see the other grades fall next year. I don't hold the answers to what you should do, but this is just my opinion.

 

[Stepharoonie!]

Originally posted by alabamaalan
I have to agree. I would still let him attend the school activities and just make him do some schoolwork over the Summer.

I agree with this, personally.

 

[cati]

I would let him go to the appreciation day. What has help in our house is when my DS gets lazy or his grades fall because of this, we make him write a 1 page essay - does not matter what he writes about - he can write about the dog down the street, his motorcycle, anything..... - but he has to write a 1 page report for me everyday. I check grammer, spelling, etc. So he has to use the dictionary to look the words up, etc. it really works with him.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

My dd has missed assignments and I wouldn't do those punishments either, school socialization/actitivies is part of the "school" in my book.

What I did was clearly explain what was expected of her for the following year (since you are at the end) and if she didn't meet that criteria the punishment was defined ahead of time. So in essence she was "choosing her punishment, so to speak".

My punishment was she was not able to ride the bus to and from school & she had to get her assignment book signed daily by her teachers.

When I would pick her up from school, I would sit in the parking lot look over her assignment book, make sure she had everything, go through her locker sometimes as well. For her the punishment had to be related directly to the homework.

All I can is it worked for my kid, but I knew what I needed to do to & it was a ongoing problem.

 

[IMGONNABE40!]

Once again, thank you one and all for your replies. Now I have to agree, taking away student appreciation day is probably not the best idea. We do not allow much TV or computer time anyway--in fact we usually use that as a reward, so it is not something that is meaningful if we take it away because he does not typically have much access to it anyway. DH thinks having him miss out on seeing Spiderman 2 would be a huge disappointment to DS and I would have to agree--although I would have a hard time with this punishment myself! We have planned to be at Universal for the opening of this movie and well...I suppose we could find something else to do at Universal. I think we could take DS to see Spiderman 2 at the end of the summer if he completes all of the assignments, but DH says not until 7th grade! I think that is a bit extreme.

Well--this post is getting longer than anticipated. Thanks again.