LW isn't sure about punishment for son's inappropriate illustration

[firebatvillain]

Dear Care and Feeding,

Two weeks ago my wife and I received a call from the school our 10-year-old son, “Josh” attends. Apparently, Josh was angry with his teacher, “Mrs. Smith,” after he was kept in from recess for playing with his phone during class. So he drew a picture.

The drawing was of his teacher in a compromising position with a dog. It circulated among the students, one of whom ultimately ratted him out. We had to attend a conference with Mrs. Smith and the principal, and Josh ended up with a week’s suspension. He’s been grounded for the next month, but his best friend’s birthday falls during that time period. My wife thinks he should be made to skip the party. I think that’s excessive and punishes not only Josh, but his friend as well and we’ve been at odds over it since. I don’t think making an exception will diminish the lesson we are trying to teach Josh about his behavior. Thoughts?

—Doodle Debacle

Dear Doodle Debacle,

Before we get to the punishment, I have to ask—why does 10-year-old Josh have a phone in school anyway? Is he a mob bookie? Unless you have a reason beyond the typical plea of “but all my friends have phones!” that most kids his age throw out there, that absolutely should be the first thing to go. No phone in school!

And I mean—man, the dog drawing is CRAZY. I would feel fortunate that Josh was only suspended. And adding one month of grounding feels entirely appropriate.

As for the friend’s party—I definitely see your point. Let’s float this to your wife: If Josh is taking his punishment respectfully, showing good behavior, and you think he has an understanding of the gravity of what he did, there’s some window for leniency for the party. But if you think he’s not taking it seriously, then I’d skip that party—he needs to understand there’s a harsh penalty for his genuinely outsized outburst to his teacher’s perfectly reasonable request. If he hasn’t already, make sure he apologizes to his teacher for his rude behavior. And also, remember—no more goddamn phone! Or drawing, for now.

—A.J.

Comments

[firebatvillain]

I feel like there are multiple layers of this being wild to me. One: the drawing. A.J. is right, that's CRAZY. Two: The fact that LW doesn't seem to be that on board with the punishment. Three: LW's kid is reacting to the minor punishment of an indoor recess because he was on his phone in class. Four: Also, he has a phone at age 10 (maybe I'm just getting old).

[lilysea]

If the son has eg ADHD or Autism, it's possible that an indoor recess is not a minor punishment - he may really need that time outdoors to regulate/cope.

A friend of mine has a son who has both ADHD and autism, and if a teacher had taken away his play recess one time when he was 10, it would have resulted in an epic meltdown that would have meant my friend would have had to come and collect him from school for the day -

not because he would have been "acting out"

but because he struggled so much to cope with school already on a good day, and he REALLY needed that play/recess to help him regulate/cope.

[cereta]

Lots of kids, dare I say most, have phones at 10. 10 is old enough to be staying home alone for short periods, possibly to spend time at a mall without parents, etc. And many, many families no longer have landlines, and payphones are practically extinct. My kid had a phone at 10. They weren't taking it to school, but they had one.

[firebatvillain]

It's true that without landlines, a kid at home alone needs a way to place phone calls. My niece (11) has a mobile-enabled smartwatch which basically acts as a phone for when she's at home or with a friend and wants to call her parents, but a phone will be more convenient for a variety of purposes.

[amadi]

I keep going back to the picture because what do you mean a compromising position with a dog? How does a 10-year-old even comprehend such an idea? Why does he know that's something that can exist, let alone something that he can draw as an expression of his anger toward an adult woman? That needs a whole lot of exploration during this month of grounding, and no, no birthday party. That's what being grounded means.

[matsushima]

I keep going back to the picture because what do you mean a compromising position with a dog? How does a 10-year-old even comprehend such an idea? Why does he know that's something that can exist, let alone something that he can draw as an expression of his anger toward an adult woman?
Right?! I mean, definitely no birthday party but more importantly: WTF?! If I had to guess, he probably saw something on the smartphone his parents gave a 10 year old.

[dissectionist]

That Texas nurse who banged a dog hit the internet bigtime a couple years ago, and rapidly became a joke among kids (source: my own kids were talking about it, and my mid-teen had seen the video before I even knew it was a thing). The idea that this kid would have been pure and innocent had his parents not given him a smartphone ignores that he doesn’t exist in a vacuum. He’s going to hear about and see things from other kids at school and hanging out with friends, even if he doesn’t have personal access himself.

I’m middle-aged now, but I remember hearing jokes about sheepfucking, because I lived in a very urban area and mocking the rural was a thing. There was a time in elementary school when I just assumed that all country people had sex with sheep, even though I was fuzzy on what exactly sex was until I encountered porn on the schoolyard (pictures torn from hardcore porn magazines, showing full penetration) when I was nine. Everyone wanted to see those pictures, and they were a hot topic at recess and lunch for a few days until the kid who brought them in got busted.

So yeah. “Back in my day” (old-timer voice), long before the addition of smartphones and internet access, I was aware of sexual congress with animals from early on, and knew what sexual congress actually was soon-ish after. Many young kids have always delighted in sharing the taboo with other kids, whether that’s racy/edgy jokes overheard from an elder sibling, talking about their own sexual experiences (which sadly some elementary school kids do have, due to molestation or seeing sexual contact within their home), or sharing sexual materials they found at home.

All of that has only been amplified by the internet’s wide availability, and kids now no longer have to depend on another kid bringing their dad’s Hustler to school. But the desire to share the racy and taboo is still just as present as it ever was.

So if we want to keep a kid innocent, not giving them a smartphone isn’t going to cut it. We also need to supervise them every second. No playdates that aren’t directly supervised every second with an eye on the screen (a friend had her six-year-old daughter shown porn on mute by a seven-year-old when the two kids were in the living room with the seven-year-old’s iPad; the adults were chatting on the couch ten feet from them but the kids had the iPad turned away from the adults’ view). No time in groups with other children, because all it takes is a whisper for a kid to share taboo details, hidden by the noise of the other kids.

I’ve read in memoirs that the keeping-kids-innocent strategy can work in remote religious communities where those who have been sexually abused are terrified to talk about it, there’s no access to reading materials or media that might introduce those concepts, and teens and adults are very careful not to discuss anything real with kids. But outside of that, “keep the kids pure” wasn’t failsafe decades ago and it’s far less so now. I’ve raised my own kids with a “teach them how to handle what they see rather than trying to control what they see” harm-reduction philosophy for that reason.

[cimorene]

+1. My whole class talked about sex at a public school in first grade. I don't think we talked about bestiality quite that early, but all you need is an older kid to tell one for the whole class to learn.

The fact that this kid understands it as an insult to an adult woman is slightly more concerning, perhaps, but again, plenty of nine-year-olds have had time to learn misogynist scripts like that by that age.

[adrian_turtle]

Oh, sure. Kids hear dirty jokes and pick up on the general cultural sewer of misogyny. There's still enough discrepency between "10 years old" and "sexualized expression of anger and contempt" to ask some questions about sexual abuse, though it wouldn't be surprising if the answers to those questions were "no."

I agree with Lilysea's comment above, that taking away recess and making a kid sit still is a much harsher punishment for some kids than others. They might need that movement break as badly as they need lunch, and skipping it could totally wreck their ability to cope with the rest of the day. Still. Drawing that kind of picture looks like cold, controlled, rage, rather than the emotional outburst of an epic meltdown.

[resonant]

"Sexualized expression of anger and contempt" is the thing that halted me - not because I think it's inexplicable in a kid this age, but because I think a kid this age needs to learn from this experience that decent people in the non-internet world find that aspect of it, well, morally disgusting.

I'm mad at my teacher - perfectly understandable.

I think my teacher is stupid - understandable and common.

I think my teacher is unfair to me - understandable and common.

I respond with mockery - understandable and common.

I think I can get away with this mockery and not get caught - well, kind of dumb. But the kid is a kid.

When I mock a woman, I do it in a sexualized way - the impulse is understandable; acting on it is socially unacceptable no matter what you see on the internet.

[dissectionist]

Hoo boy, they learn misogyny real early in my experience. I live in a liberal area and one of my kids was the one who had to make it “okay” for the other boys in his kindergarten class to use purple and pink markers, because those are “girl colors”. But once my kid (a boy) started using those colors, the other boys decided they must be acceptable to use.

It broke my heart back then and still does, that these five-year-olds were petrified of being associated with certain colors because those colors are associated with girls and girls are associated with [insert negative quality here]. The teacher had already talked with them about it but they didn’t listen to her. It took another boy breaking that ground to make it acceptable for them.

[matsushima]

Normally I would not assume that LW is a man just because they say "my wife" but… LW is definitely a cis man, right? I feel like only a cis man would not understand how disturbing this is.

[firebatvillain]

I normally would not assume either, but that's my reading as well in this case.

[pauraque]

I really really really hope this is not the case, but precocious knowledge of sexual concepts can be a sign of grooming/abuse. If this were my kid, my first priority would be finding out how he even had that imagery in his head in the first place. Arguing over a punishment before figuring out exactly what led to this is shockingly negligent, in my opinion.

[ambyr]

Yes, this is where my mind went. (And it also makes me wonder if this letter is riffing on fiction, because this is very much a plot point in award-winning graphic novel Blankets

spoilers

where the protagonist gets in trouble for drawing a detailed naked drawing of a woman at a similar age, and only later is it made clear that this is him acting out because he's being molested by his babysitter.

)

[melannen]

+1 I realize kids today have much more access to weird sexual images online, but I feel like before you're arguing about the details of punishments, that kid needs to talk to a counselor or therapist, and one who knows how to assess for abuse and mental illness. 10 years old and he's drawing explicit bestiality imagery about his teacher to deal with minor frustrations?

(Is it wrong of me to wonder if LW is the one deliberately exposing him to this kind of stuff, given how blase they are about it?)

[mrissa]

Other people have already made larger good points, but also I'd like to push back on the idea that not being able to have the exact guest list you want at a party counts as punishment. If Josh was visiting his grandma out of town that weekend or caught influenza or whatever, that would not be punishment for his friend. It would simply be one of the minorly unfortunate situations that come up in life. This is how 10yos learn to deal with small-scale things not going their way. It looks like at least one member of this social group, Josh, already needs a LOT more practice at that, it won't hurt for another of the kids to have some as well.

[ofearthandstars]

I feel like this 10 year old is probably having a lot of unmonitored phone time, hence the drawing, hence agree with the advice that 10 year old has lost phone privileges for a good long time. Plus someone needs to have a serious sit-down with the 10 year old, multiple times, to explain the inappropriateness of the picture. The fact that the LW thinks a month's punishment including a birthday party is "too harsh" is not a great sign, but I feel like the advice here is really overlooking a larger issue.

[green_grrl]

Flip. Phones. For. Kids.

[cereta]

On that, I agree. I was actually really annoyed when we had to get the young fanperson a smart phone, because the only non-smart one available was stupidly expensive.

[full_metal_ox]

Flip. Phones. For. Kids.

If. You. Can. Find. Them. Any. More.

(See cereta’s comment.)

[movingfinger]

Grounded is grounded. Neither Josh nor his friend will languish away and die if he misses a birthday party. If anything, Josh not being able to attend is a needed reminder to both him, his friend, and the other guests that actions have consequences.

Take the phone away. He has not shown that he is able to use it responsibly. If he needs it to get to and from school for some reason, he can turn it in to his teacher in the morning and reclaim it at dismissal. It's March and he has three months of school left in the year, and he will not wither away and die without a phone to mess with in class. Again: actions have consequences.