Bad girl, Bad girl, talking 'bout some real bad girl

The topic of the week: Poor student forced to stand on corner

First, I thought it was a student with no money. Then I thought it was, "Oh, poor student". But nnnnoooooo! It's "Parent tries unusual discipline to straighten out flunking student".

I have read one other article about a judge requiring a young shop lifter to do something like this outside the store he was caught in and it seemed to work that time. The kid didn't ever end up back in court.

Instead of just peer pressure this brings down your whole social group's feelings on your head. Hard to avoid feeling shamed but shouldn't a teen who could be passing classes feel ashamed of flunking? Shouldn't a rude child feel ashamed of mouthing off to his parents?

Would I do this to my kids? Probably not, but I didn't need to. They may have pulled some boners but we usually got them back on track with "carrot and stick" treatments. They wanted to avoid punishments because we were original thinkers. Grounding was always first and foremost but we did what we thought was necessary to make sure the kid would not repeat an offence. This could be a problem for them so they avoided getting in trouble.

One of them had a problem staying in school the required amount of hours per day. I think it was called skipping or something - I wouldn't know. [ :) ] We didn't want the school to kick our student out for three days for punishment. How lame is that? "You don't want to be here when you should, FINE! You have three days off!" Who thought that up?

I'm all for "You skipped 5th and 6th hour, FINE! You will stay two hours tonight and do the work for those classes. And it is two nights for every day you skip." There is always a teacher staying late to grade papers or write new assignments that can let them sit in their room to work. Or ask their PARENTS to come in to supervise them....LOL! Now That is Punishment!

What the mate and I agreed on was that I would take our student to each of the homes that let our student visit during school hours and explain to them that our student's education was important to us. If our student was in their home during school hours again we would be notifying the police and Social Services that they were contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Most of these people had kids. SS was a heavy threat. Our student had to sit there quietly and listen to us explaining this to their friends and their parents. Then I would ask our student if they understood that by coming here when our student should be in school that our student would be getting these friends in trouble. They witnessed our student saying they understood and then we would leave.

We set it up with the teachers that if our student was not in class to call us at work and one of us would find our student and return our student to classes. We did this WITH our student so they KNEW the teacher or the school were going to call us.

This was not a good day for either of us. For all I'm so feisty, I hate conflicts and our student was shamed, frustrated and angry by turns. I sure didn't do it because I didn't care about our student. And it worked for a long time. Our student's grades came back up and our student got off grounding quicker for that gain.

Was it right? Fair? Wrong? I don't know. It was the best we could come up with to keep our student learning. I didn't care if they gave her credit for the work or not, I cared that our student learned what they needed to know for the future. Reading and Math. Our student is grown and good at both math and reading. So are our student's children.

I apologize for the flood of "our students". I wanted to be gender neutral for the student's privacy. Those boy and girls of ours are now men and women and great people. I never want them to think I am trying to embarass them on purpose. It's always an accident. They are all doing the best they can with their lives and their families and I am proud to claim everyone of them. It doesn't change the fact that we all screw up sometimes. If we help you deal with your kids then it's a story worth telling. And I guess I think the lady in the article did just fine.