His detentions used to fill me with dread

When my son started school nearly six years ago he didn’t have an easy time with fitting in and settling into the school’s expectations behaviourally. He regularly spent time at the office, in detention, and was even suspended twice for a day each time.

So I’d go to pick  him up from school or after school care filled with dread about what I’d find out when I got there.

It’s taken nearly this long to be able to walk onto the school grounds and not feel this way as he’s finally fitting in a lot better with the system. It seems to me that if you don’t get the system, or just try to buck it, then it won’t like you and you’ll stand out. He stood out because of this, and because he’s quite tall for his age and because people think he’s older they expect more from him.

He’s the kid that always gets caught carrying the can. He’s not sneaky enough to run away before the teachers get there so he used to always be in trouble.

This  year he’s had a few detentions but they’ve been over quite minor misdemeanours. Take yesterday for example. After I’d picked him up we were waiting at the pedestrian lights when he told me that he’d received a detention that day. What for I asked?

He said that a bunch of kids were dancing while sticking their rude fingers up. I tried not to laugh when he told me. And to me, this doesn’t seem detention worthy but I wasn’t there. I always ask more questions when he tells me he’s been put in detention. Who else was involved? Why were you doing it?

There were heaps of the kids doing it. Did they all get detentions I asked? No, he said.

He told me that he owned up to doing it, and apologised for it, and the kid who dobbed on them had also been doing it but didn’t get a detention? Some other kids got detentions too. I think the teacher’s still filling in the forms as I haven’t received the note yet.

He asked me if I was cross with him and would I be punishing him?

I told him I wasn’t cross, but I was proud of him for apologising and being honest.