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The most active thread yesterday was titled, "School punishment" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster explains that her 2nd grade child got in trouble for talking during lunch and will have to eat lunch alone for a day as punishment. The original poster says that her child is well-behaved and this is a first offense. Therefore, the original poster thinks the punishment is inappropriate, she says that her child is very embarrassed by being forced to eat alone, and that prior for leaving for school the child was crying about being punished. The original poster asks what others think. Most posters agree that being forced to eat alone as a result of talking during lunch is an inappropriate punishment. However, most of those advise just accepting the situation and using it as a lesson about how life is not always fair. Many posters are in disbelief that children are supposed to be quiet during lunch and either think this is a ridiculous expectation or that there must be more to the story. The original poster clarified later that the children were told to be quiet for the entire lunch as punishment for being noisy previously. Many posters weighed in with posts that on the surface appeared to be reasonable, but were actually based on a false understanding of events. For instance, many posters accused the original poster of undermining the school's authority, even though the original poster stated several times that she had not contacted the school about the episode and had told her child to accept the punishment. Similarly, the original poster was repeatedly criticized for wanting her child to go unpunished, despite multiple posts by the original poster saying that she fully supported consequences for her child. It was just that she believed that this punishment which singles out her child for humiliation by being put on display eating alone was not appropriate. Quite a few posters focused on the child's reaction which they considered out of proportion to the punishment and wondered if the original poster was feeding the child's reaction with her own concerns.