Community Service- does this count?

[klmno]

Those of you that follow our DRama might remember that difficult child has to do 12 hours of community service this holiday break, although most of us feel it's a little unfair to punish him for self-defense. Anyway, because of the circumstances, I'm not really trying to make this difficult for difficult child.

He has planted seeds of various flowers, tomotoes, and swwet peppers, labeled them, watered them, etc., to take to two different retirement/assisted living complexes. And, he's going to help a disabled family with yardwork on Thursday. Today, a dog shows up on our front porch. I asked difficult child to help look at tags so we can try to get dog back to owner. Turns out, this is his best friends dog- who lives about 4 blocks away. No problem, we just call, but no one is home. Maybe they're out looking for dog. Anyway, difficult child has been taking care of this dog (puppy) trying to keep it calm, , and watered, for about an hour already until we can get in touch with the family. Does any of this time count as community service?

:smile:

 

[happymomof2]

Not sure about that. I would definitely write it all down and ask the powers that be if it will count.

My son has to do 25 hours and the probation officer said if it was for a place not on the list to contact him and we would work it out.

So far I have called 3 places and they can't use him right now. The day after Christmas I will make a few more calls and see what happens.

I did read someone else's post a while back and they said there kid did a bunch of hours somewhere and it was all for nothing because "they" would not accept them. Now that would stink. But I have a hard time feeling sorry for the difficult child's that have to do community hours so I am sure it didn't hurt him any!

 

[meowbunny]

When my daughter had to do community service for truancy, they were specific as to what counted -- helping in a retirement community home (not planting and delivering things but actually working in the home), hospital, etc. They had a list of places. If it wasn't on the list, it didn't count.

To me, taking care of someone's dog wouldn't count no matter what. The planting, maybe. The disabled family, probably not. They rarely count one-on-one service. Also, my daughter had to get someone in charge to sign off. I doubt they would have taken my word for any of it.

 

[mstang67chic]

I'm not sure if the dog watching would count either. My son has done cs at times and they would count various things. At one time, husband worked for one of the rent-to-own places and he took him to work with him one day. While he was there, difficult child cleaned a couple of appliances that had come back in, vacumed furniture, things like that. We had asked ahead of time on that one though and all the probation dept. required was that the manager sign off on it.

Another time when he got into trouble, I called the police station/city building (we live in a small town) and made arrangements for him to clean. This wasn't court ordered, just something my evil mommy brain came up with. He wound up cleaning all 6 bathrooms in the building, 2 locker rooms and both entrances. If I remember right, he was about your difficult child's age also.

 

[klmno]

difficult child got this assignment from school- for fighting. Mind you, the other kid had pushed difficult child and smarted off at him half the day, then grabbed him by the neck and pushed him against the wall. difficult child tried pushing him away but other kid grabbed difficult child by the neck and slammed him against the wall a second time. So, difficult child hit him in the side and pushed him away again. This still didn't stop it but teachers/staff arrived and got other kid off difficult child. Also, other kid had punched difficult child in the face. Other kid has no marks. difficult child had mark on side of nose and one streak on his neck, which is still there (this happened Tues.) Most of these details came from the principal. difficult child is in trouble because once difficult child threw one punch, it's an equal fight by sd's definition. The other kid got the same punishment- 12 hours community service. difficult child is on probation, but not for this. Even probation officer thinks this is an outrage and I should appeal.

I don't have an issue with difficult child doing community service, but have issue with other kid getting this as adequate punishment, given all he did, and issue with difficult child having "fighting" in his record for this when he has to go back to court in June, and when I know if difficult child had done what the other boy did, he'd been kicked out of school with more charges and be in juvy.

Principal said CS could be anything- she evn suggested yardwork for someone in the neighborhood or wrapping gifts for someone older or taking care of someone's pet while they're gone for holidays. I'm supposed to send in a letter the day he goes back to school saying he did the time and what he did. The biggest problem is finding things he can do on short notice and getting them done. I really needed his help spending time getting caught up on our yardwork!!

Oh Well!!

 

[DammitJanet]

If its community service through the school it may be different than CS through the courts.

One place that normally always has CS is fire departments...especially volunteer fire departments. Our local branch uses more people for CS than anything I have ever seen. They help run the weekly turkey shoots, they wash fire trucks, sweep up around the fire house, learn about fire safety, check hoses, take out trash, etc. There is always something that the guys can find for someone to do.

Maybe its because one of the head honcho's at the fire department has a grown difficult child of his own that has been in and out of prison but he works so hard with difficult child's.

 

[flutterbee]

My son's friend has to do 30 hours of community service for his potato cannon. :rolleyes: I'm having a hard time getting worked up over it when the police would do nothing about my neighbor shooting his shotgun off repeatedly from his porch in a neighborhood where home's are within spitting distance of each other.

Anyway, he was a tremendous help when we moved. He was with us for 2 days and was an absolute godsend since I can't do much right now. He called his PO who said I just needed to write down what he did, how many hours, any comments, sign it and provide a phone number so they can call to verify. So, he got community service for helping me move. I put down 20 hours and he worked every bit of it. Anything I needed help with, he was right there.

by the way, he did volunteer to help us; we didn't ask him. He's a good kid.

 

[klmno]

Thanks all for the advice. The fire dept. is a good idea and I've thought about trying to have him do something fire related (burn victims, a clean-up, something at fire dept., etc) since he set a brush fire, which is why he's on probation. However, my concern is that before he set the brush fire, there was a fire investigator patroling the neighborhood and becoming buddy-buddy with difficult child, then he left the picture after giving difficult child his phone number. So, difficult child tries to call him, but gets no response. The investigator did leave a message on the machine one day, which I found, and called him because I didn't know what was going on and wondered who this guy was and what he wanted with difficult child. The investigator never returned my call, but a few days later after sd decides difficult child should be on long term suspension, difficult child sets brush fire, investigator comes back into picture to question difficult child, difficult child confesses everything he's ever done wrong in his life.

difficult child has big, big issues because his father has never wanted to be a part of his life- actually, difficult child has never even seen him. difficult child has issues with rejection (consider sd putting him on long term suspension) difficult child has issues with abandonment (consider fire investigator being buddy-buddy, then "disappearing") So, I can't help but wonder if there's not some action being taken by difficult child to get some male attention here. Why it would be a fireman or fire related is beyond me. Anyway, I'm afraid (maybe parenoid without justification) that if difficult child gets some attention from a fireman then loses it, what could that potentially lead to....

 

[Steely]

I am all for taking care of a puppy as a community service. If it wasn't for your son, than animal services would have to have been called, and someone paid to take care of the animal at a shelter.

Of course I am not the SD.