School Discipline

Teacher making 3rd grader write lines

Nov 2008

I have an 8yr old daughter in third grade. Recently she's been having issues with bringing out her homework folder in the morning like she's supposed to in class. There seems to have been multiple offenses of this so her teacher apparently imposed a consequence of writing 50 times: ''I will bring my homework folder to my desk every morning''

My daughter kept delaying finishing the task (which I realize is a whole other issue) and the teacher kept adding more lines to the task. It started with 50 and it's now ballooned into 125!

My question is: is this an appropriate consequence for my child? My gut reaction says no because it doesn't link the consequence to the misbehaviour at all. I plan on talking to her teacher but I'd like to get some input so that I have some concrete reasoning to present her with rather than just saying 'hey...you're wrong for doing this!'

Thanks!

Do you think the teacher would be amenable if you presented your daughter's not having her homework folder in class as a problem you're all interested in solving? It wasn't clear from your post if your daughter leaves the folder at home, can't locate it at school, etc. Maybe your daughter could have a checklist in her backpack or by the front door, pack her backpack at night, etc.? I'm wondering if you can broach any ideas, or brainstorm with the teacher, and that might make the teacher (and your daughter) more invested in the solution. If the proposed solution has a writing element in which your daughter tracks her homework folder, perhaps that might satisfy the teacher's need for some sort of writing component to this task. Clearly writing lines is ineffective as well as punitive, but it's tricky to convey that diplomatically to the teacher. Best of luck! Jan