agonyaunt | (no subject)

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

Threaded | Flat

Am I in bizarroworld here? This suspension is wrong! A one week suspension for... what, disagreeing with a school policy? In an assigned essay?

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.

Gee, I wonder why this kid holds the belief that the adults in his life are stupid, unhelpful, and pointlessly punitive? Maybe because... they are?

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.)

*splorfle*

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.

(deleted comment) (Show 2 comments)

I feel like there are several threads in play here, but the only one that mom is actually worried about is the 'bucking authority' one.

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.

>> he remains stubbornly defiant that the policy is terrible and the principal et al. are idiots

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.

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.

This whole entire comment thread is everything I love about this community and all of you are awesome, even and perhaps especially in the places that people's opinions diverge. This community makes the internet a better place.

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

conuly's point that a failing grade is the appropriate punishment--- and I'm going to roll that up with several different threads here discussing "casually writing about animal torture to advance a minimally related point is a poor rhetorical choice in general" and/or "the appropriate response here involves how to better frame your argument, not to never ever disagree with authorities because it's an authority and therefore deserves your a priori deference" with

fox's really, really on point pithy comment about referencing Jonathan Swift.

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,

tielan is almost certainly right about the gendered stuff in this between the parents, and personally I think a better solution is to support more female-configured people in pushing back against injustice and poor planning by those in authority, rather than trying to make a male-configured kid be complicit with those things--- not least because... male-configured kid; therefore more likely to have opportunities to find himself in positions of authority and do you really want to teach him that he gets to be unjust and bad at planning and other people have to put up with it as long as he's "in authority" over them? Really? Is this what you want your son to become? Think about that.

I do think the disrespect is a problem, if only because it makes your audience less likely to listen to you, and that should matter.

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...)

I'm just going to bang my head against every brick wall over here, because sheesh. Everyone in that letter is being a complete idiot, except the kid, who gets a pass because they're still learning how to read their audience. After I'm done banging my head against ceramic construction materials, I'm going to invite the kid over to the drama department, tell them to consider a debate class, and give them a Joy Division t-shirt, because we need more misfits like that.