School Suspension

[wakeupcall]

difficult child is fourteen. He got into my h's dresser and pocketed two bullets, which he took to school to show off. The other kid told on him and now he's been suspended for three days while they decide what to do with him. He has no access to the pistol the ammunition goes to.

Unfortunately, now I feel responsible. Because he has high blood pressure, in an effort to find the cause, I took him off his Focalin XR which has resulted in poor impulse control. All I was thinking was that he would mouth off or something, not be a kook and take ammo to school!!! What's going to happen?? He's never been in trouble like that in school before.

 

[pinevalley]

Is your difficult child in high school yet? Does he have an IEP at school? My difficult child was recently suspended from high school for verbally threatening a teacher. He was not allowed to return to school until we had a meeting and a behavior intervention plan was put in place for our difficult child. Did you receive a letter in writing about the suspension, which explained the reason for the suspension and when will happen before difficult child can return to school? Also, you should be able to get work for your son to complete while he is out of school. The teachers should give you all the work that needs to be done during the suspension. Your difficult child should be kept busy with work during the three days that he is out of school. Good luck with your difficult child. The three days will be over soon, and your difficult child will be back at school just like before.

 

[KJsMama]

I'm not sure what they'll do. If this is a first offense, probably the suspension only and then he'll be back to school. From one mom to another, though, be careful with the gun. We had our gun LOCKED in an ammo box and our difficult child picked it....be careful. We've chosen to no longer have a gun in the house - not because we're against them in any way, but because our difficult child personifies the saying "if there's a will, there's a way". We have a big, bad German Shepherd now!

Good luck...it could have been a LOT worse. Maybe it's a wake up call to find another medication that will work? I wish you the best...

 

[gcvmom]

Like KJsMama said, they may not do anything beyond the suspension if he's never had problems like this before.

My difficult child 2 got a similar suspension in 5th grade for bringing a knife to school and making a threatening remark to a kid who'd been bullying him. I immediately took him go see his therapist that day (or might have been the next while he was suspended). I also contacted the psychiatrist. I wanted there to be no doubt about our desire to be proactive as parents. The school called in the crisis intervention counselors and we had a big come-to-Jesus meeting to discuss why it happened. They heard me speak, they heard what I had to relay from the psychiatrist and therapist - I gave them permission to speak to them about the situation. We were able to thoroughly explore the whole bullying issue as well. It was finally concluded that the knife was not brought with any premeditation (it was a gadget knife that he was using the magnifying glass to look at rocks and was showing other kids the rocks), and the threatening remark came about because of the bullying. They decided to implement an anti-bullying program at the school and agreed to evaluate difficult child 2 for an IEP (he only had a 504 at the time) and got him into a social skills class (which I'd been asking for over the past two years). So in the end, it was the catalyst for a lot of change in a lot of positive ways.

I hope that's the case for your difficult child.

(((hugs)))

 

[Marguerite]

difficult child 3's most precious possession (after all the computer games - maybe) is an empty shell casing he wears as a necklace. It was given to him (one given to each kid) for being in the feature film, "The Black Balloon". It's obviously empty, it has a leather thong threaded through it. He wears it to school (on the rare days we go to school - it's correspondence, but it is in the grounds of a primary/elementary school) and his teachers all know about it because difficult child 3 has talked about it and how he got it.

However, we nearly lost it when we were flying to visit my brother for his birthday, and security said it was a problem to wear on the plane. Luckily husband was able to rush back and put it in our luggage which hadn't gone through at that stage.

difficult child 1 took throwing knives to school. He didn't mean to, he had taken them in his backpack to a friend's place, they had all been throwing their knives together at a mark on the back paling fence. But at school it was of course a problem. He was suspended for three days and they should have called in the police, but didn't. I was shown the laws (not just school rules, but a combination of Dept of Ed rules and the state law) and the school actually broke the law by not calling the police. For us it was the catalyst to pulling him out of mainstream school - not for getting suspended, because he had been an idiot to take the knives with him. But for other things the school did wrong in how they handed it all.

I don't live in your neck of the woods so I can't say whether or not this was an over-reaction. I suspect in our schools, a couple of bullets wouldn't get a kid suspended (ironic, with our gun laws). It really would depend on the perceived risk. If there was a chance that the kid would have been out in the playground trying to hit the bullets with a rock to see what would happen, then yes, suspension plus a big safety talk could be on the cards. Certainly a big safety talk.

If some good can come out of this, that would be a wonderful outcome. Another good outcome would be the lesson for H, to not leave bullets too accessible in his drawer. I would hope the school would do some digging to find out why your son did this, what he planned to do and to try to instil some understanding of why it is such a serious matter.

I also agree strongly with keeping a suspended kid working on schoolwork as hard as you can. Suspension happens too easily, I feel. Kids need to be doing school work during school hours, wherever and why-ever they happen to be. Suspension for bad behaviour only rewards that behaviour, in a lot of cases.

Marg