What do you expect to hear?

quote:

If our kids acts up in school that requires a punishment we expect to hear about it, and we usually do.

If they act up during a school sponsored function that requires a punishment we almost always hear about it.

If they act up on a sports team that requires a punishment...Do expect a call from the coach or are you ok having him discipline the player within the team and you will learn about the specifics from your son?

rz1: Give an example of punishment. Are you talking about corporal punishment? (Corporal punishment is allowed in 23 states) or are you talking about laps, poles or pushups etc.

My son was not prone to "act up" in HS school ---- but if he were punished in HS I never heard about it and didn't expect to unless he or another student told me. I wouldn't expect anything any differently from a coach. HS coaches are employees of the HS school and follow the same guidelines as any other teacher and I have always given my written permission to the schools to administer corporal punishment if they deemed it appropriate.

I am absolutely fine with hearing it from my son. I believe it's best when handled between the coach and the player, rather than the coach and the player's parents.

Depends on the age of the player RZ, but if this is with respect to HS players then no. If the player doesn't make grades, a coach doesn't need to go out of his/her way to put up with all the c rap that's likely to ensue from a lawyering parent. If it's a behavior that warrants suspension, i.e. a serious infraction of stated team rules, the answer is still no.
I always made myself available to parents to contact me with questions regarding rules or regs, but everything was already spelled it out in black and white consent form/contract mandated by the local sanctioning body, and again in the student handbooks that all students got on day 1. What's left to explain?
Now if it's a younger kid that may not be able to carry the conversation home with fidelity, then a phone call to explain things is alright, and maybe the best approach.

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rz1: Give an example of punishment. Are you talking about corporal punishment? (Corporal punishment is allowed in 23 states) or are you talking about laps, poles or pushups etc.

Three examples of HS incidents that might result in a game suspension.

1. Insubordination toward a coach or captain

2. Minor damage to a teams or players equipment that would usually be categorized as a prank.

3. Fight with a teammate.

Should the parent be contacted?

Of those 3 examples rz1, then no the coach should keep that in house.
Dole out the punishment.
His team his rules.
No need for parents involvement.

If player is failing grades.
A parent should not need a coach to tell them that.

EH

Just recently...

Ref's let game get way out of hand (basketball) at one end of the court (2 refs one working each end, one was whistle happy, I think someone stole the pea from the other guy). Anyway, junior gets clubbed on the back of the head during rebound and grabbed and pushed to the floor during scramble for ball towards corner (no whistle), gets up and body checks offending player into bench (all during flow of play). Technical foul...nothing more to the story, no bad attitude towards refs or coaches.

Head varsity coach and AD meet with Junior on Monday and tell him he's suspended for at least one game (he has 4 games that week). The next day they inform him that he's suspended for the whole week. I thought it was pretty severe, especially considering there's no history of probs, but keep my mouth shut. Handled between junior and the coaches.

Later the next day, Wed, I realize that juniors older brothers only chance to see him participate in a sporting event this year, would have been the Friday game, game #4 of the suspension. I email the coaches and AD and explain the situation and point out that older brothers commmittment to West Point and the Army preclude any other opportunities. The athletic dept. and coaches (who I know personally) never respond and keep junior suspended. IMHO pretty bush league, especially considering the arbitrary nature of the length of suspension in the first place. Junior has resolved that this will be his last year of basketball because he never liked the head coach, but now he feels he can never get a fair shake.

I have no problem with junior handling it himself. I do have a problem with the athletic department being non responsive to an appeal of mitigating circumstances. Saying no is better than saying nothing.

CPLZ that is bs imo as well. And in a situation like that I feel the parents deserve a phone call from the coach explaining the situation. And at least they could have responded to your request.

rz1, NO need to contact the parent. I think part of the "punishment" should be giving the player the responsibility of explaining to his parents why he won't be playing. Part of growing up.

quote:

Originally posted by Fungo:
rz1, NO need to contact the parent. I think part of the "punishment" should be giving the player the responsibility of explaining to his parents why he won't be playing. Part of growing up.

What if it were to happen in the classroom?

Still no contact from school needed?

I think there is an exception to every rule. While in general most should be kept in house, and I see here that coaches or previous coaches feel that way, if it's completely out of character for the kid to do #1 and #3, I would like to know about it. There may be some underlying problem that I as a parent should know about. Doesn't mean I will get involved or say anything, but it will warn me that there could be some other issues on a personal level. The health and well being of your child should trump any "in-house" rules.

Could be the first sign of drug abuse, unhappiness at home or some sort of problem that may require immediate attention.

Again, if it is totally out of character for this young man, I say relay it.

Class room I believe is different then the ball field.
If the student is acting up, or not performing properly in the classroom.
And the behavior is not being handled by the school.
Then by all means contact the parents.
EH

Classroom problems, I'd want to hear about. Baseball or team related problems I would want to coach to reach out to the parent if they thought it was serious.

CPLZ


For me there is no correlation between the two boys. son A and son B. Just because the older boy is home for the holidays and this will be the only time he can see his brother play, for me at least, does not enter into the discussion

Young borther has to do what he has to do and that is sit

I wonder if the Athletic subculture may be more apt to trust the Athletic department over the Academic administration even though they work under the same umbrella of rules in regard to discipline.

btw- I'm pleading guilty with that thought.

If I walked on the other side of the fence I may look at this as preferential treatment to athletes.

btw- good reply Danny Boydston

HS informs parents of any problems by way of report card. Unless my HS kids have broken the law, done something that was way out of control I wouldn't expect to be contacted and if so it would be by the principal or dean. Most HS teachers will tell you that they expect the student to come home and tell parents when they get in trouble or they ask the student to have their parents contact them. A teacher calling for concern about grades is not included. I would expect that a caring teacher with concerns should make that call.

Same for coaches, I expect that whatever happens is between player and coach and that it is the players responsibility to tell parents what they did wrong.

Problem today is that most kids will come home and tell the parents they got in trouble, BUT DID NOTHING WRONG, which results in the parent making the call claiming that their son/daughter did nothing wrong, why are they in trouble?

One of the main reasons I don't teach anymore. I saw this often, even on the elementary school level. Dealing with many parents was worse than dealing with the student.

My kids were deprived from an early age beginning in kindergarten, being a teacher they knew that if we got a phone call regarding behavior, the teacher (or coach) may not be 100% correct, 100% of the time, but their punishment would be a lot less than ours just for the phone call.

quote:

I wonder if the Athletic subculture may be more apt to trust the Athletic department over the Academic administration even though they work under the same umbrella of rules in regard to discipline.

btw- I'm pleading guilty with that thought.

Ditto. Sometimes I feel that coaches' old-school disciplinary methods can be more effective than the PC methods the academic administration employs. And at times, even the administration seems to feel the same way. Case in point: during junior year, my son got in trouble for leaving campus during lunch. When the asst. principal saw him driving off campus, he immediately called the baseball coach, who took care of things once my son returned from Wendy's. Suffice it to say that not much of my son's lunch remained in his stomach after coach had his way with him! (He also never left campus again.)

quote:

What if it were to happen in the classroom?

Still no contact from school needed?

NO. If a teacher FAILS to punish my child when they need punishing then THEY (the teachers) can expect a phone call from me. If they punish my child then I see that as doing their job. The responsibility of disciplining a child falls on the shoulders of the teachers when involved in school activities. They have guidelines and I approve of those guidelines. My kids knew the teachers had the green light with discipline and I'm sure that helped eliminate problems with them. Discipline is good --- LACK of discipline creates the real problems.

Fungo, I think we went to the same school of thought.

However, I wonder if that school is still open

Son, suspended a game for a technical? Our coach never does that, seems a bit severe of punishment to me, after all basketball can be a bit too aggressive at times and when you are being manhandled......

rz1, the 3 items you listed should be dealt with between the coach and the kid. No parental contact necessary. Most situations at schools (on the fields or in the classrooms) have predetermined discipline for certain inappropriate actions. Some of the discipline is over kill but they are what they are.

CPLZ, IMO what the school did, as far as additional suspension for a technical foul, is absolutely ridiculous. A technical foul is a somewhat normal part of a game. I obvoiusly don't know the school but sounds like it is trying to protect it's image as much as anything else. Can you imagine a college team doing this!!

I see one common denominator here. For the most part our kids play above the board both athletically and academically and if trouble does happen they will come home and confront mom/dad with the issues.

Now some fodder to chew on.

What about that part of the student body, the ones who are constantly called to the carpet, both athletically and academically. Should parents be called more regularly? Please don't say "who cares it doesn't invove my kid". It does. Those kids bring safty issues, and IMHO those kids also the curtail learning threshold of students and and create an "indifference" attitude with the teaching staff.

I don't have dogs in this fight anymore, but as a parent I've seen way too many infractions where a finger pointing, or a slap on the wrist is handed out, and the kid is back the next day or he/she understands that fine line when mom/dad, or the police will become involved. Report cards with comments are not the answer as they only give an overview of a time frame and IMO it's old news.

I see where as parents many of us say "handle it in-house", another group says "don't discipline my kid, that's my job", and yet another group that says "do whatever, he'll do what he wants regardless". In the end we criticize the school system for not doing their job, but is it the mix of messages that are sent from parents that ties the hands of our schools and makes them no more than an advanced day care?

Is there a solution?

Our high school has alternative schools were disciplinary problems are sent. They can be chronic issues or agregious actions. After some time they can be allowed back into the main school.

I think a school system should have set policy regarding discipline. If you do this, your punishment is this. Like sports, the kids should have to play by set rules. If they don't their will be consequences.

This is coming from a parent whose son was on a first name basis with the vice principal his freshman year. He has matured some since then thank goodness. (Now a junior)

In HS I would expect the school to dole out punishment but I would appreciate a call just to keep me in the loop. I would never dream of getting involved.
A tech penalty is the worst kind of foul. It is a personal penalty for inappropriate behavior. Never happened and never will. In fact my son got what I jokingly call the "Lady Bing Trophy". Most sportsman like player in a Major BKT tournament. It was a beautiful Swiss watch.
I actually saw him push a kid off a friend who was being beaten by this guy. I saw the whole thing and he jumped in to help a good friend. The bully picked himself up and stared for a moment an left. If my son was called on the carpet for that, I would have stepped in.

If my kid is going to be disciplined to the point where it will effect his academic status (not allowed to take a test or gets a lower grade) his athletic status (suspended for X amount of games or kicked off the team) I would appreciate a call. I know my son can come home and tell me, but I would like to hear both sides of the story.

Reading these responses, God forbid we trust and believe our kids. Seems that the school and coaches are always right and whatever punishment the deem necessary is ok. Some of that discipline could effect alot more in life than you might realize. Scholarships, graduation, health etc.....As some of you so often say "it's part of the growing up process", well, so is telling your side of the story and fighting for what you think is right. If you don't have your parents in your corner, then who else is there.
Sorry, but in some situations, a phone call would be appreciated.

Best assistant principal I ever had took kids on day one and told them; "if you come to the office because you got into trouble I am going to believe the teacher over every single time. They are college educated and authority figures in this school. I have been doing this for a long time and been in the classroom a long time and I will tell you now that if you show up, do your work, try and don't cause problems the vast majority of teachers will do everything they can to help you. If you get into trouble or can't get along with a teacher then the problem must lie with you."

Now I realize some of you are thinking that is unfair but he would always sit down with the kid and listen to their side of the story. Based on what he knew about the teacher and student he would either drop the hammer or let them vent and send them back to class. He knew which teachers could handle classroom problems and which ones couldn't. He knew which kids he could trust and which ones he couldn't.

He disciplined everyone fairly and took each situation as it happened. Unless it was school or board policy he never applied blanket punishments.

This where most of the problems arise is that not everyone disciplines equally or takes everything into consideration. Administration thinks a punishment is just right but parents thinks it's too much, parents think punishment is just right but administration thinks it's not enough.

So who is right?

The biggest problem with discipline is the lawyers and parents. I have been out of the education game for a long time. My father is a retired superintendant from the Chicago area and this is his favorite story. He had to suspend a kindergarten kid for 3 days for bringing a screwdriver to class. Was the kid trying to stab people? No. The day before his teacher was trying to fix something in class and said,"I wish I had a screwdriver." Being a typical, helpful 5 year old he brought him a screw driver.

Due to lawsuits brought by parents, the school had no option but to enforce the mandatory punishment of a three day suspension. Their hands were tied. If they had let the kid off, they would have set themselves up for another lawsuit the next time a kid brought a knife to school. The schools have no room to make judgements and no time or resources to fight silly lawsuits.

The parents have brought it on themselves.

Coach, I guess it's just a reflection of life. Someone is always going to be right and someone is always going to be wrong.

What I think is good you may think is bad. What you think is fair I might think is unjust. That's just the society we live in today, tomorrow and forever.

My only solution is to raise my kids the way I feel is appropriate. To do what I believe is best for him today, tomorrow and forever. Hopefully when all is said and done, the decisions I made were the right ones.

Doughnutman:
That is why 'zero tolerance' sometimes equals 'zero thought'

Teens do stupid things...gotta keep close tabs on them and have people telling you what's going on in matters before they become big deals. One example I would want to hear about if it were my kiddo.

I guess that I am in the unique position of having been both a high school & college coach. At the college level I had very little if any contact with the parents. If I contacted the parents it was a major problem (drugs, drinking, police action, student was not attending class, etc...) that was going to require the parents intervention. I am of the opinion that if you treat college kids like adults they will for the most part act like adults and make mature decisions. Dealing with high school student/athletes I had an open door policy and would discuss anything with the parents but playing time & position. I would even phone parents in the evening to tell them how junior was doing and what he needed to work on both on the field and in the classroom. This open communication was a major factor in the school winning 4 state titles in 10 years.

Totally agree.

Hi All,

Kids make mistakes. That is how they learn. Touch fire and the natural consequence is that you get burned. I frequently see kids that have had the consequences removed from their behavior, and they make the same mistakes over and over. Of course as they get older the behavior reaches greater heights and the consequences are of much more significance. Our job (teachers, parents, coaches, mentors) is to help enforce the natural consequence so they learn sooner rather than later!

In the school where I teach, a student's teachers all work together. If a kid is having an issue in one place, odds are it is in other classes as well. That way we can address the issue across the board. We tend to get better results that way. We also extend this to the administration, coaches and the parents as well.

If my son was a snot to his coach and was on the bench, would I want to know about it?
Absolutely. Not to argue the punishment, but, to help drive home the consequence!

Gee, son, I hope that you get things straightened out with the coach.... Must not be much fun being stuck on the bench.... No one says we have to fight fair!!

quote:

Originally posted by fillsfan:
CPLZ, IMO what the school did, as far as additional suspension for a technical foul, is absolutely ridiculous. A technical foul is a somewhat normal part of a game. I obvoiusly don't know the school but sounds like it is trying to protect it's image as much as anything else. Can you imagine a college team doing this!!

fillsfan,
Everyone I knows thinks the same thing, the school was just spinning its image.

Some great responses here.

I think there needs to be a distinction between teaching morals and teaching discipline. Morals are the parents job, and in that regard, I don't like interference from teachers. The reason is, that it's like ethics, it's a sliding scale that people usually use to fit how they would like the circumstance to work out. There is no fixed threshold, therefore, hands off for everyone except the parents.

Discipline, is all parties, parents/coaches/teachers. Just like my example, where I think my kid was treated overly harsh with his suspension, the net net, is that if he didn't do it, then he wouldn't have to worry about the suspension. The only recourse they have as players is to walk away...which unfortunately, 4 of the 5 sophomore team starters are probably going to do next year.

I'll give another example...when junior was in 6th grade he became academically inelgible for basketball because he got an F on the first test of the new semester, so was failing a class, automatically ineligible. There is a written policy on how this is handled and it went by the book. Junior was actually not allowed to play in games for two weeks, until the next math test brought him up to eligible status...good lesson for the squirt.

However...after the two weeks, not only would the coach not give him his starting position back, he wouldn't play him for another week. That I had a problem with. The reason I had a problem, is that all players should be treated the same and his arbitrary additional penalty usurped that. I was told by the Asst. Principle, that the coach had my sons best interest in mind...another thing that bugs the C rap out of me. In our district, anytime a policy or decision is questioned, the pat answer from teachers and administrators is, "it's for the kids and in their best interest", rather than an explanation. They expect at that point, that we should genuflect at the alter their wisdom, bow our heads and submissively be on our way.

Reeling it back in now... , I think much of it comes from leadership at the schools. Like Coach2709 was referencing about the best asst. principle ever, he was a leader. Unfortunately, in our current district, we are totally rudderless, from the school board to and especially the Superintendant and Principle (HS). Here, communication flows from on up high and only rolls downhill.

We raised 4 kids who are now adults. Not one incidence in school, sports etc. We controlled who they hung with and believe it or not some of the worst were BB players. No parties until senior year HS and they didn't even want to go then. My son comes home and we pick him up from Friends who drink because he knows how quickly things can go bad. We told him that we would pick him up no matter how much we cursed at the 3 am call. Maybe we were lucky but I don't think so. We never moralized or lectured them on right or wrong but we did control their friends even the ones that seemed real nice. Often found out that they weren't so nice.
The results are that your kids crave discipline and you do it because you love them. We never spoiled any of them.