What would you do?

Question

My 13 year old son says the other morning..... (it had been snowing for 3 days now)....." I'm going to get suspended from school today because the principle said no throwing snowballs at school" Later that day he called home to say that he got suspended from school. For throwing a snowball at the back of someones head.
How would you deal with this?

Answer 1

Ugh, this is one of those turning-point times when you have to remind your child that you are his parent, not his buddy. You have to express to him that you understand how tempting it must be with all that snow around to do what comes naturally to boys - - how can you blame him! - but by warning you in advance, he has put you in the awkward position of co-conspirator! Your goal, after all, is to get him out and functioning in the "real world". In other words, how many jobs would we go through as adults if we followed our whims instead of our boss's rules?!? So, he has to pay a price. His suspension time should be miserable, he should be dying to get back to school by the end of it. He should have all fun stuff taken away, and he should be given extra chores. This will be difficult if he will be home alone during the day, but maybe you could drag his butt to work with you, since he is obviously "too immature" to stay home alone. Or hire the oldest, crotchety-est babysitter for him.

And tell him that in the future, he can horseplay after school. I know boys will be boys, my boys get the biggest kick out of tripping each other, or hitting each other until one cries "uncle"...I'll never get it. But all I can do is explain there is a time and a place for silliness.

Answer 2

Tell him to obey the schools rules. But it depends on the situation, was he was being bully-like thats another story. Sounds like just some kids having fun. Because if he needs to throw snowballs that bad, tell him you and him will have a snowball war after school :)

Answer 3

I would ground him for about 1 week and take everything he likes to play with out of his room and if he has a cell phone take that to and then let everyone know when they call or look for him that hes grounded and why hes grounded if that don't work then set up a way to have him help the principle or school janitor clean the drive field with snow but most likely the grounding will work good luck.

Answer 4

You can be mad. BUT don't let him see that you are mad. Ask him what inspired him to throw a snow ball. Tell him a story of how some kid broke you glasses or something like that when someone threw a snowball at him. Make him apologize to the kid he threw the snow ball with. OR you can tell him to act mature some kid may commit suicide because of a thing like that (then who is to blame?)

Answer 5

Make sure he didn't throw the snowball just to spite the principle and authority.

Hope that he was angry because he likes throwing snowballs, and thinks the rule is stupid.

Your kid is 50% you, think to yourself what you would want your father to do if you were in the same situation.

need to know more about why your kid threw the snowball, and at who, and why at that person... etc

Answer 6

I have never hit my child, and 13 is too old to be spanking anyhow if you ask me (for those who believe spanking actually works???). He's a smart kid OBVIOUSLY. I think I would use the most imaginative consequence possible. Perhaps.... make 1000 snowballs out of the snow on your lawn (without throwing any), and give them away to neighbourhood kids (perhaps teach him some marketing skills, have him make a snowball stand). And MOST OBVIOUSLY, he needs to make a standard letter of appology to the child that he hit... let's say one word for every minute he's suspended (might as well go all night too!). He might think twice about it. As for suggestions of grounding him, or sending him to his room. I'm sure he's got an mp3/cd player, tv, xbox or ps2/3, phone and all the other wonderful toys kids have nowdays... in otherwords, wouldn't EVERYONE like to stay home in that environment??

Best of luck! When my daughter was younger and needed to learn a lesson, I always thought, how can she learn from this! And brought imagination into play.

Answer 7

I would be so pissed if that was my kid!

Totally grounded! No contact with the outside world – no phone, no friends, no internet.

Obtain all of his assignments that he will miss while suspended so that he doesn’t get behind with his school work and make sure that they are all completed as soon as possible.

Wake him up every day of his suspension an hour earlier than he would have had to regularly get up for school and get him to do as many of the absolute worst chores around the house that you can think of. Then remind him that if he doesn’t want to go to school then he had better get used to doing crappy work like that cuz that’s all he’s going to find without an education.

Answer 8

Well, firstly I think suspension is REALLY harsh for throwing a stupid snowball. BUT that said, it IS the rule, and your son was aware of the rule, and consequences, and did it anyways. He is responsible for taking the punishment.

Answer 9

Talk to your child and let him know this is not good behavior and how you feel about it. He already was planning to be suspended so he had let you know that morning. This is getting you or him no where. I would take away some fun thing your child likes. T.V. maybe a game etc.

Answer 10

Allow him to face the consequences of that decision. In other words, allow him the opportunity to learn from that choice and be required to do the things necessary to get back in school.

Due to his choice to get suspended, I would also not let the suspension time be "enjoyable" while he is out of school. Remove privileges from him and require that he earn them back by doing the things necessary to get back into school.