Recess Trouble - What Would You Do?

They were punished at school for misbehavior at school that was relatively minor. It's over. Call it done and move on.
If my kid lied to me, she would be punished for lying.

They were punished already, what else is there to do? Unless this is a pattern I just don't see why you'd punish them at home. Let the school deal with discipline at school.

No, I don't think additional "punishment" is needed. The school gave them a consequence.

I would tell my child strongly -- "You don't throw apples or generally litter at school. Don't ever do anything like that again."

For throwing apples, no. The one that lied about being sick, yes.
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Okay after your what happened, never heard of a school that doesn't have a school nurse. Even my older kids school had one though she was a mom who volunteered.

I wouldn't have been upset to not be told, after all it was so minor the school didn't even take note of it. Really the only oddness was the one girl who overreacted and called her parents to pick her up.

Kids are told to sit out, sit down, go inside, whatever all the time on the playground, those are not things that kids are expected to tell their parents. Heck you would be told something every week.

Sounds like the punishment fit the crime. When I did yard duty I didn't report every incident to every teacher (no time for that even if I wanted to!) I would report to the teacher/office if there was a serious incident, or if I was noticing a particular pattern of behavior. Teachers would decide case by case if an email/call home was necessary.
These girls made a poor choice and they suffered the consequences. Unless they often get into this kind of trouble I wouldn't do anything other than say, that wasn't a great idea, was it? I hope you learned your lesson.

For the apple throwing I see no reason to take it further, they got punished (missed recess) and then moved on, as it should be. If my child called me to pick them up claiming to be sick when they were not to avoid trouble, well, that I would not let slide. I had to miss out on hours at work and she lied. There is never an excuse for lying.

Well, they got punished at recess. They didn't damage anything. At home, I'd probably take away "fun" stuff and have extra homework, and a very long chat about respecting property, etc.

And honestly, I think the one that "got sick" needs a little extra talking to for ditching her responsibility and trying to get out of possible discipline by using the "sick" excuse. That's actually a bigger issue to me.

School took care of it..

Punished at school. Repeat at home does nothing.

I think the school should have given a stronger consequence, but the extra punishment would go to the "sick" one.

I observed something similar recently and I thought the mom handled it very well. It was in a large department store, and there were two boys, probably around 7 and 8 years old. Their mom was shopping. They got bored and started horsing around, and in an instant, they got louder and nearly knocked something over. I began to get annoyed, but that ended when I heard the mom speak to them.

She knelt down so she was on their eye level. She spoke firmly but politely and quietly but she was obviously very serious.

She said to them something like this: "you are in a store. Someone owns this store and is trying to run a business that people will want to come to. There are people around you who are trying to shop, and who need to buy things. You will NOT act in such a way that makes it difficult for the store owner and manager and all the workers to do their jobs. You WILL behave and be respectful so that people can shop in peace. You will think about others, besides yourselves. Yes, you may be bored, but that is no excuse. Now you will stand quietly and talk to each other and wait for me to finish shopping."

I was so impressed. She was not belittling them or yelling ridiculous or futile things like "I'll never take you shopping again" or "You'll get it when we get home." She was making them think about consequences, and not just the consequences to their own selves (punishment, or loss of privileges, or spanking or whatever), but consequences to others around them.

So I think that speaking to your daughter about the consequences of her actions in terms of others might be appropriate. She wasted food, and there are hungry people everywhere, and food banks that can't supply enough food. She caused extra work for the maintenance staff. She disobeyed rules and caused the recess supervisor to have extra work and perhaps turn her attention to this mischief and away from a child who may have truly needed help. And in the future, not knowing how to walk away and say no might lead to much more serious consequences.

So I'd take this as a good teachable moment and talk to her about thinking about the big picture, and do some role playing with her - you pretend to tempt her or bully her into doing something and help her develop some good strategies for saying no. Help her come up with something to say, like "nope, not interested" and simply walk to a safe place. I would accept the punishment she got, but help her to learn to think in a new and safe way.

Any punishments at home are upto the parents and are none of anyone's business. There are somethings that my kids do at school that they may get punished for at home but there are things that they wont be punished for. As for coming home due to the fear of being punished a second time - that is an issue that the parents need to deal with directly.

Personally, my child would be writing an apology to the recess supervisor for her behavior

Well, I am not sure a punishment is necessary; making reparations, though, is. I'd rather teach than punish. Kids do stupid stuff, and they need to figure out how to fix the problem they created.

I think it would have been far more appropriate to have the girls all clean up the apple mess then and there. Or to do it after standing against the wall. If the mess had been cleaned up by the janitor, I might talk to the teacher about having my child help the janitor with a task or two, just to teach some empathy and so they *know* that a real person was affected. At home, if my son makes a mess that I end up dealing with--for whatever reason-- we 'trade' jobs; he must do a job I choose for him and it's not likely to be a fun one. (this is for on-purpose messes, not usually accidents-- we both help together if need be.)

And an apology to the person who ended up cleaning it up is important, too. When we teach our children to be accountable to their community (because the janitor is a person, too) we teach them that their actions in the world have significance for others.

If this is a first time offense, no additional punishment. The school's consequence of having to sit out for the rest of recess is timely and natural. If it happens again, I would address it further at home but if this is isolated, I think that the school punishment was enough. Being disciplined in front of your peers is pretty humiliating.

When there is a school issue, I tend to let the school deal with it. If we are having ongoing, everyday troubles, that's different and that's where I step in to reinforce what the school is doing.

Good kids otherwise, who did one stupid thing, I would drop. The problem is that the one girl, then went on to lie to get out of the punishment. I get why, hello, we were kids once ourselves, but that meant missing a huge portion of a her schooling.

So she would be in trouble, but since really it was her education that was effected I would have her doing some extra school work. She would be making up all of her lessons for that day. Not just the few the teacher might give her, and maybe some extra writing involving her spelling words.

Then I'd drop it and hope she learned her lesson.

Kids who learn to call in sick turn into adults who call in sick. This is the the issue I think that needs to be addressed in the story. I tend to tell parents about 'an incident' so they are aware. If my child threw apple i would want to know. I think apologizing to the recess lady would be appropriate.

It's done. It's a small hiccup of life.

The one who said she was sick, she probably has to deal with shaming and/or excessive punishment at home. It was too much to bear at school.

Let it alone. I gaurentee you if you do nothing or go overboard, the results will be that they never throw apples again.

Enough said.

The school already punished the girls for throwing apples. So, no need to double-punish.

The girl who faked an illness, though, she might deserve an additional punishment. Certainly a strong lecture along the lines of the boy who cried wolf.

Oh, and school nurses are required in most states, at least in public schools. Your state may be an exception, or maybe this is a private school? But this is generally the norm, not a luxury.

This is the same type of punishment our school used when my children were in grade school. As far as I know, unless it was something really major that required parent involvement, the other teachers never knew what went on at recess.

As for these three girls, in addition to standing along the wall, I think they should have been made to clean up the mess and if the apples came from someone else's property, they should have made them apologize to the owner for taking/stealing the apples. Additonally, a note/email should have been sent home to inform the parents of what happened. Then, you can bet, if this were my daughter I would have had a very strong discussion with her about not ever doing this again but I probably wouldn't have added any additional punishment.

Now, if it were something worse like bullying, disrespecting a teacher, etc., you can bet there would have been additional punishment when my child got home. I will not tolerate this type of behavior.

Additionally, I don't really care what the other mothers do with their own children; nor do I care what they think about my parenting skills. I learned very early on (and the hard way), none of the other mothers were really my "friend" at the school where we were. (I don't miss that school at all!!)

Good luck!!

I would talk to my dd about the issue. I don't know if I would punish or not since no one was hurt but I would let her know the consequences of her actions.

I am of the belief that I am in partnership with the school on providing my dd with a good education so I want to know what's going on. If she gets in trouble at school she will get in trouble at home with no tv or ipad. I don't think discipline is just up to the teacher it should involve the parents too.

No, what happens at school really should stay at school. To interfere takes away the schools authority and undermines them in the future.

The kids will start thinking that they don't have to mind the teacher because they can get away with anything. The teacher is just going to tell mom or dad and they'll just take away the TV or games or something. SO they can act however they want at school and have fun for 8 hours.

Allow the teachers to be the authority at school. Consequences should happen at school. Talking to them about what happened is of course appropriate. BUT agree with the teacher in front of the kiddo's about what she did. If you don't agree then talk to the teacher about that after kiddo is out of hearing. Tell the teacher that you will not undermine her authority in front of kiddo but they need to understand that does not mean you agree. Talk to them and make the suggestions that you think might work then let the teacher make the decisions, fail or succeed, it's the teachers job to manage their students.

As for the playground supervisor making the kids stand against the wall, that's not appropriate punishment in any sort of situation. Having them "sit" out of recess is of course okay for something like this. Making a child stand for an extended period of time is beyond wrong. If they had to face the wall while standing that is humiliating and if it were child care care and a licensing worker came to hear about this type of punishment the facility could lose their license to operate and be closed down. This is not acceptable in any sort of situation.

In today's schools what happens on the playground stays on the playground and the teachers are not advised about anything that occurred. It's not a good system in my opinion.

My friend's son got hit in the head with a rock on the playground. When he went back in he tried to tell his teacher he didn't feel good. She asked him what was wrong. He said "Out on the playground...." and the teacher stopped him and said "What happens on the playground stays outside our classroom". He went and sat down. He spent the afternoon holding his head in his hands feeling nauseous. When he got home they went to the doc's office and he had a slight concussion. The teacher still defended herself saying that the playground supervisor should have sent him to the office if he had been hurt that bad.

I think it was handled well at school.
If I was her parent I'd keep my eye on the one who called home so she could go home sick rather than face the possible wrath of the teacher.
(They allow cell phones? Our elementary schools don't allow students to bring cell phones on to school property at all.)
Also, I'd require the school nurse to call me about an 'illness' at school that would require me to come pick them up.
If there's no fever, projectile vomiting, diarrhea (or broken bones, bleeding) etc and so forth - there's no coming home from school.
I'd not let her take her cell phone to school but I wouldn't punish any further than that unless there were other incidents of 'act up, cut and run'.

As a mom I wouldn't punish my child for this. She received her punishment/discipline at school by having to miss recess and stand on the wall. I would talk to her about it and discuss why it's wrong and to make a better choice next time and leave it at that. However, if it continues to happen, then yes. I would start to discipline at home.

Why do you need to hear about what your daughter did at recess? I don't mean that in a harsh way, I'm just curious. You're going to punish your daughter for not telling you about some silly prank she did at recess? The school handles that stuff!

As for the school nurse - I have never heard of a school that did NOT have a nurse. I wouldn't feel safe sending my children to a school that has no medical staff on site! I'm amazed that the PTA where you are doesn't try to change that.

ETA: I'd be especially wary of the fact that this school - with no nurse - forces children to STAND against the wall (in the heat etc) as punishment at recess!! Stand til they drop and no nurse is onsite to help them. Lawsuit waiting to happen!!

I don't think further punishment is necessary unless she actually lied to you. I don't think it's great that she didn't tell you, but I don't think it's so bad either. Most kids probably aren't going to run home saying "guess what mom? I got in big trouble at school today!? So, unless you asked her about it and she outright lied, I think the school handled it and no further punishment necessary. Have a brief talk (which it sounds like you already did) and let it go.

If the school had thought it was a bigger deal, they would have contacted you directly.

Nope. The situation was appropriately handled on the playground. It was not a classroom issue and as a one-time incident, is not an at home issue. If the school didn't think it a big enough issue to call home/send a note than it is not something to get worked up about.

I would scold the girl who faked sick for lying and call it a day.

They don't need to be punished per say, again, at home.
They were already retained at recess by the recess Supervisor. And the Teacher probably did not know.
Which often happens. Because EVERY single thing that happens at recess is not written up to the Teacher every single time.

But what happened, is another case of... a child not telling their parent how their day went or what they did.
MANY kids do not tell their parents, how their day at school went or what happened. It is common. So to me, that is the issue because, those girls did not tell their Moms what they did or what happened at school.
I see this all the time.
I work at my kids' school.

SOME of the kids are real.... busy bodies and do crappy things at school. And they may get caught like in the situation you described. But they don't tell their parents anything. And the parents think their child is just a perfect angel. But its false. There are LOTS of things that kids do at school that parents do not even, know about. Because-- their kids do not even tell their Mom/Dad how their day at school was.

Thing is also: 3rd graders KNOW darn well that throwing of the apples against school property was wrong. They did it anyway.
AND I don't know how, a kid could just call their parent to come pick them up, for being "sick" when the school and/or the Health Room, did not even... call the Dad. This is not proper school procedure.
No kid can use their cell phone, while at school.
If sick, they have to go to the Health Room and THEN the school Nurse/the school will call the parent.