Is detention an appropriate discipline strategy for middle school?

[Anonymous]

If not, what's better?

[Anonymous]

Perfectly appropriate - they need to bring it back and Saturday detention too.

[Anonymous]

Does it have the intended result? Is the child learning a new behavior in place of the prior undesired behavior?

[Anonymous]

Parenting. Parenting is better.

The school gives a school appropriate consequence. This in no way means there shouldn’t be a parent initiated consequence.

[Anonymous]

Schools are VERY limited in what they can do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perfectly appropriate - they need to bring it back and Saturday detention too.

I don't have kids in middle school yet. What are the standard consequences now if not detention?

[Anonymous]

Since schools don't paddle anymore, what's left? Mouthing off to a teacher, late for class X amount of times and mom and dad too busy to discipline. Detention requires teen's TIME (phone free) and maybe mom or dad need to transport.

[Anonymous]

Yes.

It offers time to reflect.
Sometimes when kids are making a choice and want to do the right thing but are tempted, they have to have something to "scratch against" like "I would, but I don't want a dentention," to show their friends they have a limit to what they will do.

It also empowers teachers to keep order and keep teaching.

It is a punishment to the parent, because the routine is interrupted, but sometimes that is a good thing. It shines a light on what needs to change.

[Anonymous]

Yes.

It offers time to reflect.
Sometimes when kids are making a choice and want to do the right thing but are tempted, they have to have something to "scratch against" like "I would, but I don't want a dentention," to show their friends they have a limit to what they will do.

It also empowers teachers to keep order and keep teaching.

It is a punishment to the parent, because the routine is interrupted, but sometimes that is a good thing. It shines a light on what needs to change.

[Anonymous]

The problem with schools now is that there is very little they can do. Many schools switched to restorative justice approach which emphasizes talking, problem solving, realizing how you may have hurt someone, what you could do differently. In theory these are great things to learn how to do to resolve differences and learn to do better. Is is a good thing that vague offenses like willful defiance where one student is punished (often a student of color and/or boy) while a another student (white and /or girl) is not. The problem is that some kids realize there is not punishment, and begin to run amok. Those kids used to be suspended, which gave teachers and other students a break, and served as a warning to other students. Those kids are no longer being suspended, which encourages other kids to mimic their behavior because they realize there is no consequence.

[Anonymous]

Back in my day detention came with work- they called it work crew. You stacked library books, cleaned chalkboards etc. Wish they could do that now.

[Anonymous]

I think it is very appropriate. These days schools can no longer discipline unruly students. It has become extremely difficult for teachers and administrators to maintain safe learning environments for all students. Now we coddle and pacify negative behavior instead of providing punishment for it. Also, parents no longer discipline their children. So, schools have their hands tied when it comes to implementing effective disciplinary methods. Detention is quite generous considering the fact that a middle school student is old enough to know better when it comes to positive versus negative behavior. We are not talking about a kindergartener here.

Good for the school for requiring detention. Good for the student to realize that their negative behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. This student will have time to reflect about their poor choices. Good for the other students who follow the rules because they no longer have to be subjected to negative behavior. Good for the teacher because he or she doesn't have to neglect other students from the learning process by wasting time on the offending student. It is just good all the way around.

Consequences in life are not suppose to be comfortable or a walk in the park. Detention is definitely appropriate!

[Anonymous]

Our MS assigns lunch detentions..drum roll please; kid gets a pass to go to front of lunch line to serve detention. Talk about mixed messages.

[Anonymous]

I’m not in DC, but my kids’ middle school had “detention.” They called it office hours. It was for kids to go get extra help or have a place to work on homework. It helped for parents who didn’t want to have latchkey kids. It was also used as a dentention of sorts. If a kid was misbehaving or got behind in class, they could be assigned mandatory office hours. The kids had to notify their parents and the teacher had to witness the notification, and they’d go and do schoolwork. It helped kids get and stay on track. It wasn’t really meant to be a harsh punishment, but it seemed to be good the way the school used it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our MS assigns lunch detentions..drum roll please; kid gets a pass to go to front of lunch line to serve detention. Talk about mixed messages.

If they don’t go first, they’d probably goof off for most of lunch and go through the line last on purpose, then show up for the last 5 minutes to serve detention. It doesn’t seem like a mixed message to me.