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Dear Care and Feeding,
My younger son, Evan, recently started his sophomore year in high school. I was stunned when he was suspended for a week over an assignment he’d turned in. One of his classes called for an essay to analyze a plan that went wrong, starting with why the plan was adopted, what flaws were inherent in its assumptions or execution, the consequences of the failure of the plan, and how the plan could be improved.
Evan chose to wrote about his school’s zero-tolerance for fighting policy. He thinks the policy was adopted because the school’s administrators are stupid and wanted to rid themselves of trying to figure out who’s responsible when an incident occurs. This policy, Evan says, increases violence, since if a kid can get suspended for even being near a fight, they might as well be violent once a fight starts. He points to several kids who were suspended, and one expelled, for being in the vicinity of a fight—or even attacked—and notes that this is both unjust and damaging to their education. His suggestion for fixing things involves giving the school staff brain transplants from the principal’s cats, which he declares would enhance their intelligence.
I am beside myself that Evan could be so disrespectful and insulting to his school’s administration. But no matter what sort of discipline I apply at home (he’s been grounded for the foreseeable future, and I’ve started monitoring his internet usage), he remains stubbornly defiant that the policy is terrible and the principal et al. are idiots. My husband has been absolutely no help at all—not going quite so far as to openly agree with Evan, but making it perfectly clear that he does in fact sympathize with him. I don’t know how to regain a handle on this situation.
—Furious Mom
Dear Furious,
Look, he’s been suspended for a week (for what it’s worth, I am in agreement with Evan that suspension from school is an inherently destructive punishment; nevertheless, he has been punished). I don’t think your grounding him for the foreseeable future is going to do anything useful in this situation—in fact, I think your overreaction is probably making matters worse. (I think the school’s suspending him has had the same effect, but that’s another matter altogether.) Have you had a conversation with him about what he wrote? Are you throwing the baby away with the dirty bathwater (as his school has)? I don’t know what his father is thinking, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were proud of Evan for his gutsiness in using this assignment to critique a school policy, however flawed his logic may be.
Between your overreaction and your husband’s underreaction—not to mention the school’s knee-jerk, counterproductive suspension policy—I don’t see how Evan is going to learn anything from this experience. Instead of piling on the punishment, have you considered having a real conversation with your son about what he wrote? I’m curious about whether you disagree with his premise (that the school’s zero-tolerance policy is a failed one), and whether you can have a conversation with him about the challenges his school faces in dealing with violence, and what ideas he has about what would help. Lecturing him about respecting his elders (and authority) will get you nowhere. As will punishing a high school sophomore for his literally sophomoric sense of humor.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/11/mother-son-relationships-parenting-advice-care-feeding.html
My younger son, Evan, recently started his sophomore year in high school. I was stunned when he was suspended for a week over an assignment he’d turned in. One of his classes called for an essay to analyze a plan that went wrong, starting with why the plan was adopted, what flaws were inherent in its assumptions or execution, the consequences of the failure of the plan, and how the plan could be improved.
Evan chose to wrote about his school’s zero-tolerance for fighting policy. He thinks the policy was adopted because the school’s administrators are stupid and wanted to rid themselves of trying to figure out who’s responsible when an incident occurs. This policy, Evan says, increases violence, since if a kid can get suspended for even being near a fight, they might as well be violent once a fight starts. He points to several kids who were suspended, and one expelled, for being in the vicinity of a fight—or even attacked—and notes that this is both unjust and damaging to their education. His suggestion for fixing things involves giving the school staff brain transplants from the principal’s cats, which he declares would enhance their intelligence.
I am beside myself that Evan could be so disrespectful and insulting to his school’s administration. But no matter what sort of discipline I apply at home (he’s been grounded for the foreseeable future, and I’ve started monitoring his internet usage), he remains stubbornly defiant that the policy is terrible and the principal et al. are idiots. My husband has been absolutely no help at all—not going quite so far as to openly agree with Evan, but making it perfectly clear that he does in fact sympathize with him. I don’t know how to regain a handle on this situation.
—Furious Mom
Dear Furious,
Look, he’s been suspended for a week (for what it’s worth, I am in agreement with Evan that suspension from school is an inherently destructive punishment; nevertheless, he has been punished). I don’t think your grounding him for the foreseeable future is going to do anything useful in this situation—in fact, I think your overreaction is probably making matters worse. (I think the school’s suspending him has had the same effect, but that’s another matter altogether.) Have you had a conversation with him about what he wrote? Are you throwing the baby away with the dirty bathwater (as his school has)? I don’t know what his father is thinking, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were proud of Evan for his gutsiness in using this assignment to critique a school policy, however flawed his logic may be.
Between your overreaction and your husband’s underreaction—not to mention the school’s knee-jerk, counterproductive suspension policy—I don’t see how Evan is going to learn anything from this experience. Instead of piling on the punishment, have you considered having a real conversation with your son about what he wrote? I’m curious about whether you disagree with his premise (that the school’s zero-tolerance policy is a failed one), and whether you can have a conversation with him about the challenges his school faces in dealing with violence, and what ideas he has about what would help. Lecturing him about respecting his elders (and authority) will get you nowhere. As will punishing a high school sophomore for his literally sophomoric sense of humor.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/11/mother-son-relationships-parenting-advice-care-feeding.html
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Geez.
Since he didn't actually provide a workable solution to the problem he identified, give him a failing grade and move on. A suspension? You can bet I'd be escalating this if it were my kid, rather than giving him stupid speeches about respecting authority. If you can't handle kids disrespecting your authority, you'd better stay out of education.
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What kills me is that this was a teachable moment. Audience! Think about who you're trying to persuade, and what tactics will work. Insulting those very people is not really a good idea. What should have happened was that Evan should have been required to rewrite it with arguments and tone that would (hypothetically) have made school admin listen.
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Unless the boy was proposing to actually do it, and had the scalpels and cats ready, because then it's animal cruelty.
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That said, I find it interesting that in the good advice about actually talking about his ideas, it didn't occur to the columnist or apparently anyone else in the situation to look into what actually does reduce school violence. I guarantee this is a subject with a lot of scholarship on it, and so-called "zero tolerance" policies in various forms have been used across the US for decades, so if there's any evidence they work or that they are strongly counterproductive, surely that should be the focus of the conversation and not just like, "tell me about your feelings and brainstorm about harm reduction as a purely imaginary exercise".
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He completed the assignment (in a snarky, disrespectful, and hilarious fashion, for which I frankly commend him), no one was hurt or threatened, this is not a suspension-appropriate situation.
The appropriate consequences would have been to assign him to actually research what DOES work to reduce school violence (since the data is out there), and complete the assignment as given.
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The missed opportunity I see is for LW and their partner to prove Evan wrong about *all* adults being unreasonable and talk through his issues with school policy, support him in his reasonable complaints, and *then* maybe point out that the brain transplant thing wasn't going to get any good result. Maybe nothing would! But it's possible something might, especially if his parents backed him.
Instead LW is playing right to Evan's worst expectations. Adults *are* crazy and punishment-happy and never on his side. :(
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LW, you would be much better served by empathizing with your son and being on his side against bullshit school policies, rather than throwing absurd fits because he *gasp* disrespected authority. All you've done is align yourself with his enemies, to no useful purpose, and undermined your own authority permanently. He's not going to accept anything you say as rational or reasonable, because you've proven that you aren't.
You have so, so much crow to eat, LW. And a lot of work to do to rebuild any trust with your kid. But I doubt you'll even try. Instead you'll most likely keep digging, trying ever more draconian "discipline." I pity Evan, who has no sane authorities in his life at all. (Including his father, who is spineless and abdicating all responsibility. If he thinks that LW's punishments are unjust, he should be SAYING SO.)
(Fastforward a few years and LW will absolutely be an estranged parent throwing fits about how they did "everything" for their child, how sharper than a serpent's tooth, etc.)
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Dear God, please let neither of my young roommates think of writing an essay like this, because I will be laughing much too hard to explain to them where they became ... less than persuasive.
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KDFJLSJDLFLSKD
pls transplant school admin with cat brains
tbh there prob were holes in the policy that allow s**t to happen and it's fair to point them out
and a sophomore 100% would phrase it that way
i mean that policy actually makes it so that people can't break up fights which is bulls**t
and if you put that at [local NYC high school] that could be bad bc of the teachers
no offence towards some but A Lot towards others
i mean i almost got suspended at bxsci (along with a couple other people) bc the locker next to mine had weed and my locker smelled
not lying that playing guidance monitor (delivering guidance notes) might have been the only thing that saved me bc i was basically volunteering for the guidance office and deans so they all knew me
tl:dr, play nice with administration so they all know your face and that you're an innocent bean
i'd make bets on that making my senior year better too
but yeah. parents pls stop pulling the strong man scandalized woman s**t and the kid just needs to be taught what constitues what you write in an essay vs to friends
i mean if you wanted to be rude but not rude:
"i think that replacing the administration with people that have more recently been in high school so that they actually know what's going on"
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tl:dr, play nice with administration so they all know your face and that you're an innocent bean"
That's actually what worked amazingly well for my daughter, TBH!
Not that she was normally in trouble, but it meant that the adults were on her side when a couple of attempted-bullying incidents occurred -- whereas the adults in my childhood/adolescence were like, "What did you do to provoke it?" (Answer: nothing, I really just wanted to be left alone.)
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This is true, but I think he would benefit from having someone *tell* him this, not expect him to infer it from being grounded and yelled at about being Disrespectful.
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I mean, the kid needs to learn a bit about choosing his words for his audience, but, hey, he's thinking about reasons behind the reasons given which is good, and recognising that a lot of times policy is made not because it's the right thing to do but because it's convenient for the rule-makers/enforcers (something that took me decades to realise), and he got a reaction from both his parents and his school. Mischief managed!
Also, I am wondering a little if mom's reaction to bucking authority vs dad's reaction to it is related to gender. Women get a lot less leeway in bucking authority, and the perception is that they're better protected by sticking to the rules, so she sees this rebellion as a concern for her child, while dad is more tickled by the show of independence.
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Um. That's because he's right.
Like, he possibly did do some things that were somewhere between ill-considered and rude, but calling him defiant because he refuses to recant something that is true (and you present no reason here to believe it isn't true!) isn't going to teach him any useful lessons.
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Even if "keep your head down" really is the only thing to do, "keep your head down but keep the truth in your heart and keep your eyes out for people who feel like you do, so you can support each other" is much more useful generally.
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When my nephew was punished for a fucking stupid school policy, my sister's at-home lesson was "on the one hand, that's a fucking stupid and unevenly enforced policy, and on the other hand, the powers that be are in charge. You have three choices: become an activist against fucking stupid policies; accept that they're dicks and you'll get punished for stupid shit; or follow their stupid fucking rule." Honestly I think it's a pretty good lesson, when framed that way. If things are unfair, you can fight it, you can lump the consequences, or you can live in the unfairness.
(FWIW, the policy was unfair but not racist/sexist/classist/etc. Just pointless, not a battle my sister had to get involved in.)
LW is going a different direction and saying "if they punished you, you deserve it." Aargh.
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Maybe I’m just channeling cheesy 80s movies (The Cat From Outer Space), but I want more details on whether the principal’s hyper intelligent cats are secretly aliens.
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Okay. Substantive responses to this particular letter:
Young people trying to come of age in the past five years deserve perhaps just a little bit more compassion than usual for confusing "Grand Guignol satirical horror fiction" with "serious and meaningful critique of plan/policy decisions" because there's a whole set of their elders who are getting away with doing that in real time and some of those have been or still are in high public office.
I agree with everyone who's said that Evan's parents are doing a really good job of teaching him to have no respect for the adults in his life.
I like
Namely, somebody in this process could have given this kid a whole curriculum about satire--- "here, go read Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' and for that matter here's a whole reading list worth of people who've used zany screwball arguments to make their point and did it effectively". And/or a whole curriculum on how to effectively critique a policy. I mean, I had my mother and some teachers in high school and college do this to my equally literally sophomoric arguments and I am a better thinker and a better person for it.
Also,
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Young people trying to come of age in the past five years deserve perhaps just a little bit more compassion than usual for confusing "Grand Guignol satirical horror fiction" with "serious and meaningful critique of plan/policy decisions" because there's a whole set of their elders who are getting away with doing that in real time and some of those have been or still are in high public office.
Word. I mean, I agree with your whole comment, but especially this bit.
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And, I mean, there was at least one whole children's book that I saw a while back that was devoted to helping parents explain to their children how the behavior of the last occupant of the Oval Office is not something to emulate, and in some ways, it's gotta be harder for teenagers, not least because of all the fairly young-for-their-jobs people who were getting snapped up left and right (or perhaps alt-right and wrong) for positions in the previous administration. So there are these examples of people close to your own age for whom being a provocative and offensive troll is a good career move, and not just in comedy, but in government and politics. It's like all those AAM letters about parents' (and career counselors') out of touch career advice, but with the twist that even though those behaviors have obviously advanced some people's careers (At least temporarily and please God will some of these folks be forever banished from the public sphere), that doesn't mean that they were actually good at their jobs, and frequently neither were nor wanted to be.
And, it's like, I just want to play "Children Will Listen" from Into the Woods on repeat, here.
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But anyway.
Support your kid. Argue about the suspension to the district. Ground him for the length of the suspension, sure, but also help him figure out how to better argue his position. (Unfortunately, given your initial support of the administration, you're unlikely to have his full enthusiasm, there, but you can *try* and regain it...)
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