If my child misbehaves in school, should I be penalized for his unruly behavior? Or is it the responsibility of the teacher to control my child when he’s in school? Some districts are beginning to fine parents for their kids misbehaving in school and personally, I think it’s a good thing. When I was in school, we didn’t misbehave. Okay maybe just a little. But somehow the threat of having our parents notified and the possibility of a spanking was enough to keep us in line. Some school districts blame the parents’ attitudes for the state of today’s schools, as far as the discipline problems. And some have decided that the parents will ultimately pay the price, literally.
I was reading in our local paper yesterday that a small fishing community just outside of Mobile would immediately begin fining parents if their kids misbehave or have too many unexcused absences. Bayou La Batre’s 3,000 public school kids will be affected. If kids misbehave, including bullying, cursing teachers or skipping schools, the parents can face fines of $100 or serve up to 90 days hard labor for the city. The individual principals of the four schools will decide when to charge parents. It basically amounts to a citizen’s arrest. The principals have the forms in school and once they make the decision they can execute a citizens arrest. From there the police will arrest the parents. They will serve either jail time or pay a $500 bail. The case then moves on to municipal court where they will pay the fine or serve time.
If a child misses more than five days, unexcused, the parents will immediately be arrested. Each time the child misses an additional five days, the parents will be arrested. As I said earlier, this is a small fishing community and many parents were actually taking kids, as young as 7, out of school to help work on their fishing boats.
Some parents might argue that they can’t control their kids once they enter the schoolyard but if they can’t then their pocketbooks are going to suffer. As a parent, I wouldn’t have any qualms if Tyler’s school district would enact such a rule. Kids have to understand that education is important and should be taken as such. It took one “talk” with Tyler to make him understand this (and yes by “talk”, I mean spanking). At the beginning of the school year back when Tyler’s teacher had 22 kids (thank God they finally found another teacher!), the majority of the kids decided that they were going to act up. Tyler, seeing this, decided that he too would join in the fun. When I received the report of what was going on I let him know that their would not be any further reports related to bad behavior and so far I haven’t received any. Many days, according to his teacher, he has been the only child in the class not misbehaving. The threat of my coming to school to embarrass him was enough to keep in line. See, I believe that if a kid is going to act a fool in school, well I can act a bigger one.
What do you think, as a parent should you literally pay for your child’s misbehavior?
See also:
Is Your Method of Discipline Working?