DD got in trouble for "stealing food" and the entire grade has a punishment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: DD11 is in fifth grade and has had a bad day-she got dress coded for the first time ever and when I picked her up early for a dr appointment the teacher questioned her and didn't seem pleased of her leaving early. To add flame to the fire DD, who has gotten in trouble at school about five times ever, got accused of stealing food at lunch.

Apparently, DD's friend started a game where you pass her empty lunchbox around. My daughter says she is almost positive the friend finished her lunch and that the box was empty but the lunch monitor saw them and told the teacher that DD and four or so of her friends were stealing the first girl's food. None of these girls have a reputation for being troublemakers. Neither the lunch monitor nor the teacher asked for their side of the story. Now the entire grade is having a silent lunch because of what my DD and her lunch group did. DD was very upset. I am not going to talk to the teacher, but it doesn't seem fair that my kid didn't get to explain. Also, why is the whole grade being punished for what five kids did? Thoughts? Was this a fair punishment?

I should add that this isn't the first time something like this has happened. When my DD was in kinder or first at a different school both her and her friend got ice cream. The friend finished her ice cream first and then while the girl was in the bathroom my DD ate her ice cream. The lunch monitor accused my daughter of stealing the girl's ice cream but allowed my DD to explain and didn't tell the teacher.

This is good teaching and a good consequence. It’s a way to make everyone know who is responsible for their misery.

In sports, a lazy laggard will watch while her teammates run the lap or hit the pole, for example

It is highly effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: OP here. Just making it clear, I do think that it was a weird game and that my kid and her friends should be punished for not keeping their hands to themselves. I just don't understand why they are punishing the whole grade. Seems unfair to the other kids. My guess was the grade as a whole was already being loud, the lunch monitor was on edge, and jumped to conclusions. But I don't believe my kid stole food.

No, in your initial post, you said, "I am not going to talk to the teacher, but it doesn't seem fair that my kid didn't get to explain." You're not really concerned about the other kids, you want to make sure everything is "fair" for your kid.

In other words, you are one of *those* parents.

[Anonymous]

I can guarantee that the lunch monitor did not care who ate who's food that day. The silent lunch was because kids were being loud and goofing off. This really isn't such a big punishment and it likely wasn't because of one kid or one small group of kids. The event was probably just the last straw in a series of events in the lunch room that day and your daughter reported to you that it was because of this one single event because she didn't know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

To add flame to the fire DD, who has gotten in trouble at school about five times ever, got accused of stealing food at lunch.

You say that as if it’s a small amount of times?!

Five times over the course of her education. She has been attending school since preschool so in a sevenyear period she has only gotten in trouble about five times.

In first a boy stole the bathroom pass from her so she wrote him a note saying "Give me back my bathroom pass!" which got her in trouble for passing notes. There was the time she got accused of stealing ice cream and she's gotten in trouble twice for talking. And then there was this incident so yeah, I do think five times is a small number of times.

Please note that in the next seven years of her k-12 schooling, there are going to be a dozens of incidents where you daughter tells you something that she describes as her being misunderstood or unfairly punished. This is completely normal and part of developing social skills among her peers. When you go on to believe every word she tells you without hearing the other side of the story and then fret and seethe over it for years afterward, you may be harming her social development in the long run.

I don't think my daughter was lying to me. This is not my first-time parenting-she has older siblings and I know when my kids are lying. I don't think believing her will "ruin her social development."

It's not that she's necessarily lying, but that her perception of events is not exactly the entire story. She tells you what happened from her point of view and you have no idea if the class was punished because of this one group, or if there were three other groups of kids who were being equally excitable so the monitor put the hammer down. There does seem to be a pattern of you hanging on every incident as if your daughter is being persecuted. The ice cream thing was five years ago, and yes, the adult probably made a mistake. Why even bring it up now? The bathroom pass incident was again, one side of a story that the teacher probably doesn't even remember. But you now consider it one of the great persecutions of your daughter during her elementary school years. These things happen. You calm your daughter, maybe suggest some behavioral adjustment, and the let it go. You are not letting go and you don't even know the whole story.

I think you are mischaracterizing OP re bringing up prior incidents. At first she said her daughter was in trouble only 5 times before to try to show her daughter is not a troublemaker. Then she was questioned about why she considers 5 previous incidents not a troublemaker and so she explained those incidents. It’s not as if she brought them up as stories of persecution. And remembering something is not the same thing as dwelling on it. This is typical DCUM blame the OP thinking where everything OP says will be challenged and misconstrued.

Don't you see that the very way OP describes these incidents literally sounds like the whining of a child? The child is the one claiming she is persecuted and punished by the teachers because of some misunderstanding or accusation. That is normal. Heck, I did that as a child, too. But my own mother recognized that there was probably more to the story, and she also recognized that this was just a single moment in a single day and life carries on. Nobody tallied these as an instance where someone got in trouble, but for some reason OP does exactly that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: OP here. Just making it clear, I do think that it was a weird game and that my kid and her friends should be punished for not keeping their hands to themselves. I just don't understand why they are punishing the whole grade. Seems unfair to the other kids. My guess was the grade as a whole was already being loud, the lunch monitor was on edge, and jumped to conclusions. But I don't believe my kid stole food.

No, in your initial post, you said, "I am not going to talk to the teacher, but it doesn't seem fair that my kid didn't get to explain." You're not really concerned about the other kids, you want to make sure everything is "fair" for your kid.

In other words, you are one of *those* parents.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

To add flame to the fire DD, who has gotten in trouble at school about five times ever, got accused of stealing food at lunch.

You say that as if it’s a small amount of times?!

Five times over the course of her education. She has been attending school since preschool so in a sevenyear period she has only gotten in trouble about five times.

In first a boy stole the bathroom pass from her so she wrote him a note saying "Give me back my bathroom pass!" which got her in trouble for passing notes. There was the time she got accused of stealing ice cream and she's gotten in trouble twice for talking. And then there was this incident so yeah, I do think five times is a small number of times.

Please note that in the next seven years of her k-12 schooling, there are going to be a dozens of incidents where you daughter tells you something that she describes as her being misunderstood or unfairly punished. This is completely normal and part of developing social skills among her peers. When you go on to believe every word she tells you without hearing the other side of the story and then fret and seethe over it for years afterward, you may be harming her social development in the long run.

I don't think my daughter was lying to me. This is not my first-time parenting-she has older siblings and I know when my kids are lying. I don't think believing her will "ruin her social development."

It's not that she's necessarily lying, but that her perception of events is not exactly the entire story. She tells you what happened from her point of view and you have no idea if the class was punished because of this one group, or if there were three other groups of kids who were being equally excitable so the monitor put the hammer down. There does seem to be a pattern of you hanging on every incident as if your daughter is being persecuted. The ice cream thing was five years ago, and yes, the adult probably made a mistake. Why even bring it up now? The bathroom pass incident was again, one side of a story that the teacher probably doesn't even remember. But you now consider it one of the great persecutions of your daughter during her elementary school years. These things happen. You calm your daughter, maybe suggest some behavioral adjustment, and the let it go. You are not letting go and you don't even know the whole story.

I think you are mischaracterizing OP re bringing up prior incidents. At first she said her daughter was in trouble only 5 times before to try to show her daughter is not a troublemaker. Then she was questioned about why she considers 5 previous incidents not a troublemaker and so she explained those incidents. It’s not as if she brought them up as stories of persecution. And remembering something is not the same thing as dwelling on it. This is typical DCUM blame the OP thinking where everything OP says will be challenged and misconstrued.

Don't you see that the very way OP describes these incidents literally sounds like the whining of a child? The child is the one claiming she is persecuted and punished by the teachers because of some misunderstanding or accusation. That is normal. Heck, I did that as a child, too. But my own mother recognized that there was probably more to the story, and she also recognized that this was just a single moment in a single day and life carries on. Nobody tallied these as an instance where someone got in trouble, but for some reason OP does exactly that.

DP - Also, claiming that you know when your child is lying, or shading the truth, is the mark of a nightmare parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: OP here. Just making it clear, I do think that it was a weird game and that my kid and her friends should be punished for not keeping their hands to themselves. I just don't understand why they are punishing the whole grade. Seems unfair to the other kids. My guess was the grade as a whole was already being loud, the lunch monitor was on edge, and jumped to conclusions. But I don't believe my kid stole food.

It doesn’t really matter. Your daughter isn’t being singled out for stealing. It sounds like several kids were not following rules, being obnoxious, causing lunch room chaos. They probably can’t say definitively which specific people are offenders and which ones are angels. So the whole grade gets silent lunch for a while. Not a big deal. I would let this go and tell your daughter to behave better and not participate in shenanigans for she sees them unfolding. The less people that participate in this behavior, the less likely for group punishment.

[Anonymous]

People are always complaining that the public schools don't punish enough, but this is the flip side of that. You get private schools where there is basically no process -- someone gets pissed off and so punishes a bunch of kids for no reason. We're all human and we've all had times when we were tired and over-punished our own kids, then questioned whether we had over-reacted when we were in a more calm place. But if this is a pattern for that school, I would definitely be looking for a new school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can guarantee that the lunch monitor did not care who ate who's food that day. The silent lunch was because kids were being loud and goofing off. This really isn't such a big punishment and it likely wasn't because of one kid or one small group of kids. The event was probably just the last straw in a series of events in the lunch room that day and your daughter reported to you that it was because of this one single event because she didn't know.

Part of my job is to monitor elementary school lunch. I agree that OP is making a big deal of out of this and modeling bad behavior to her daughter. OP, I’d remind my daughter about appropriate lunch behavior and kind friend behavior. Then I’d drop it. Don’t say anything about unfairness. If you want, reach out to the teacher to ask for info, not to defend your daughter.

[Anonymous]

This seems ridiculous. Why would the girl whose lunch box it was not just say no, they didn’t steal it we were playing a game. This kind of “game” also doesn’t make sense for 5th graders (I have 5th grade DDs). I would guess they were being mean to the girl and passing around her lunch box to be a-holes, but didn’t steal her food.

[Anonymous]

I don’t like whole group punishments. However was the punishment for stealing specifically? Or passing around a lunch box and being silly/disruptive? I still think it’s punitive but there is a difference. My kid was punished in 4th by loss of recess because one table in the class was being noisy. I was pissed. They get one recess a day and were still masking so the only time to be mask free all day. I sent an email and it was handled and I was told it wouldn’t happen again. I don’t think a silent lunch for one day is terrible.I do think your child being accused of stealing if she wasn’t is an issue though. I would email the admin. My kid is also in a private.

[Anonymous]

Westland MS in MCPS has collective punishment. DD hates them and finds them unfair too.

[Anonymous]

If it’s really what happened it think it’s bad pedagogy to discipline someone for stealing if the issue is disruptive behavior. Imagine if your boss wrote you up for stealing when the real issue is that you failed to do an assigned project — you’d be pretty pissed, rightfully, and would be especially irritated if no one allowed you to tell your side.

The only way I can make sense of this is that the lunch monitor though the kids were playing keep away with the lunch box and equated that go stealing the lunch box. It’s still not really theft but is sort of bullying or at a minimum obnoxious if that’s what happened. But not getting the kids’ side of the story before punishing is lazy, I think.

[Anonymous]

Was the girl whose lunchbox was being passed around part of the group passing it around? Or did she want that to happen? It doesn’t sound like it and in that case, it sounds like the group was being mean and the lunch monitor picked up on it. Or maybe everyone was involved but one girl maybe your daughter maybe not, took something out. It seems like your daughter may or may not have stolen food but she may not be as nice as she can be.

A fifth grader is not always going to tattle to the teacher even if wronged, so whether that happened or not is irrelevant to whether the situation happened as you heard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be done with that private school now.

Students at privates will complain about collective punishments! The kids will hang on to that feeling of unfairness for a long time even if the school is amazing in every other way.

Yea, I still remember all the pointless and petty collective punishments that were doled out by my teachers at my private in the 1980s-90s. Some of those teachers clearly wanted to humiliate certain kids. Some also just used it to get a break from actually doing their job, I swear.