The Right Thing? Thinking

Here is a “typical” email or letter I get every so often … the situation is that a student has had their hand phone taken in school time, and the parents are going away, and want the school to return the hand phone.

Dear Mr McCallum,

My son/daughter had their hand phone taken in school by Mr Teacher. We have no way of contacting him/her over the (long) weekend (both my husband and I will be away).

Can you please return the hand phone to them.

They will come by and collect it tomorrow morning.

Thank you,

Mrs Parent

It clearly is hard being a parent, and well meaning parents often feel they are caught trying to do the “right thing”. Let’s look at this letter from a few perspectives, examining “what is the right thing?”, and what the possible results are.

The Right Thing? Thinking 1

“The school took my child’s hand phone because they were using it in class / school. This is against school rules, so I will respect the school rules and not ask for the hand phone back.”

Results – Child knows that the parent is supportive of the school period. School consequence upheld.

Results – The original “safety” concerns still exist for the parent (who cannot contact their child when both parents are away). An interesting parental twist with a “real world consequence” to this would be for the parents to indicate “Son, your safety is important to me. Because you have used your hand phone in school and the school has taken it away, we need to be able to contact you when we are away, so you will have to stay home, and use the home phone instead. We’ll see you Sunday afternoon when we are back, you can go out then”.

The Right Thing? Thinking 2

“My child is wrong to have used their hand phone, but I feel that their safety is an important factor. As I am travelling this weekend, I will demand that the school returns their hand phone.”

Results – Although the “safety issue” is resolved, the overarching message and learning for the child is (a) “my parents will bail me out of trouble I get myself into” and (b) the school’s rules don’t matter.

Results – Internal “fairness” problems and “consistency” problems for the school. What is the school’s response going to be when other students want their hand phones back for the weekend? They all know that another student got their hand phone back, and want the school to act fairly.

Results – Internal “trouble” for the principal. The Principal requires teachers to confiscate hand phones if students are using them in school. Teachers pass the hand phones to the Principal, who keeps them for a week. When teachers find out that the Principal is returning hand phones to any parent who says “we are going away, please return the hand phone”, respect is lost for the Principal, and the motivation of the teacher to bother enforcing a school rule is diminished.

The Right Thing? Thinking 3

“My child is wrong to have used their hand phone, but I feel that their safety is an important factor. As I am travelling this weekend, I will demand that the school returns their hand phone. I will, of course, ask the school what other consequences they can use instead of holding on to the hand phone.”

Results – The “safety issue” is resolved.

Results – The school is able to maintain “internal fairness” and “equity”, and teachers know that the rules won’t be modified.

Results – The child knows that the parent values the school’s authority, and that the child must be accountable for their actions.

I am the parent of an 11 month old, and a 3.5 year old – and parenting is tough. I can only hope that I will have the parental resolve to deal with the situation in 14 years time with Thinking 1. Thinking 3 also works, but is option 1 is still the optimal. I fully accept and acknowledge that it does have a lot of complications and logistical considerations that go along with it.

I have a simple system in place at school that sort-of helps with Thinking 3. This is that we return the phone to the student over the weekend, but we collect the phone back again the following school day – AND – the weeklong confiscation of the hand phone starts AGAIN – from the first day. You would be surprised how many students will actually beg their parents not to ask for the hand phone back, as they don’t want it taken for another week upon return to the school!