40 min Detention for 6 yr old who did nothing wrong!

Dove - posted on 02/18/2013

Let him serve his time and tell your husband to get his act together and stop making his kid late for school.

Amy - posted on 02/16/2013

I would have my son serve the detention. It may not be his fault but it's the rule and like Shawnn I wouldn't be teaching my kids that some rules at school are ok to break and others are not. Also by having him serve it he may be more motivated to get your husband going in the morning to get him to school on time.

Shawnn - posted on 02/15/2013

Ok, first of all, you don't get to pick and choose which school rules that you and your child will heed. It doesn't work that way. If you WANT it to work that way, look into homeschooling your child.

With children that young, the detention is just as much to get the point across to the parents to step it up!

Yes, it is the parental responsibility to get their kids to school. Part of that is getting them to school ON TIME. My kids were always after me to make sure they weren't late when I gave them rides. On the FEW days that we did run late, I called the school, and I talked to the principal personally, explaining what had happened, and I did my level best to not make it happen again. However, that did NOT mean that my kids didn't have to serve detention, if that was the selected consequence.

No, paying a fine wouldn't be fair to the other students. The whole point is, it doesn't matter what the excuse is (unless it involves a medical emergency). If the kid is late, they disrupt the entire class for anywhere from 3-10 minutes while they come in, get out of coats/backpacks, get their stuff to their desk, and sit down. They've missed the first part of class, and they are now delaying 12-18 other students by the simple fact that they are late. The fact that it was a parent causing the tardiness doesn't change the effect that the tardiness has on the rest of the class.

Look at it this way: I bet your husband makes more of an effort to get your son to school on time!

Julia - posted on 02/15/2013

It depends. My son is in 1st grade and the school has the same policy. I don't know about your son but my 6 year old isn't exactly Johnny on the spot in the morning. He drags his feet, asks for more minutes to sleep, more minutes for TV, wants me to put on his shoes. Therefor I would let my son serve the detention and talk about how he needed to help keep us on track in the morning by being independent and fulfilling his morning routine without putting up a fuss. I might sit down as a family and talk about how everyone can contribute to getting out on time in the morning. Does your son have a clock in his room? Do you have milestones in the morning? We have a little schedule hanging on the door with times. Such as
wake up 6:30 am
Out of bed 6:40 am

The ideal would be to get to the point where your son is dressed and ready saying to your husband, we have to leave in 10 minutes. :)

Yes if my first grader is late it is ultimately my fault, however, this is the rule at the school and therefor you must follow the rule or it sends a bad message about the fact that we can decide what rules we want to follow. On the other hand I would tell the school that my son would not be serving the detention until someone from the school could explain the procedure so that your son was prepared for what it would be like. I think that is reasonable.

On the other hand if your 1st grader is the one dragging daddy out the door and your husband is really truly the only weak link I might ask my husband to go and serve the detention with him, or in good fun have daddy serve out an in home detention so your son sees everyone received a consequence. The key is that if there is a ligit hod up the problem gets IDed and fixed.

We are lucky that it is a very small school community and he is familiar with the whole building and the school has a buddy program where older students are younger students buddies so he would be comfortable even if the detention was with older kids.