Education Quandary: 'My daughter often gets after-school detentions, and then I have to drive to fetch her. Why not have lunch-time ones?'

Hilary's advice

I'm interested in your focus here, which is not on why your 14-year-old daughter is getting so many detentions, but on the inconvenience to you, as it means she can't get the school bus, and you have to put your younger child in the car and fetch her.

But shouldn't this be a conversation between you and your daughter, not you and the school? Why, exactly, is she getting so many detentions? Is there something wrong in her life that is making her unhappy and disaffected? And why is it that she doesn't seem to understand or care that she is putting the family to such inconvenience?

Schools complain bitterly these days that many parents will automatically ring up to complain if their son or daughter has done poorly in a test, or been in any sort of trouble. "My child, right or wrong," is their battle cry and woe betide any teacher or head who gets in the way of that.

But this is so wrong-headed. Young people need boundaries, even if only to push against them. They need to be helped to develop self-discipline, and to understand how their behaviour affects others. These are crucial things that will give them the muscle, grit and empathy that they will need to get on in their education, and their adult life.

It could well be that, if you set out the issues calmly and reasonably, your daughter's school would consider shifting her detentions to lunch times, but this really isn't the major issue here. I feel you need to think hard about the messages you are giving her.

Readers' advice

The school will probably have used lunch-time detention already without result. An after-school detention that inconveniences the whole family will hopefully bring pressure from home that a lunch-time detention wouldn't. Schools have few sanctions left. When I taught in a day boarding school we used Saturday- morning detention – that really worked.

Jill Noble, West Yorks

Why should your daughter be allowed to disrupt the learning of perhaps 25 to 30 other pupils in her group, as well as her teachers' lesson plans and then be punished in her teachers' lunch breaks just so that you aren't inconvenienced? At my school, we have a 40-minute lunch break, which means that, by the time we have tidied up after the lesson before and got resources out for the lesson afterwards, we actually have about 15 minutes in which to snatch a sandwich and a drink and go to the loo before we're off again.

This is your daughter. She is your responsibility, and if she misbehaves, it's only fair that you should be inconvenienced as much as her teachers have been.

Paula Saunders, Hertfordshire

Is it really impossible for your daughter to either walk home, or wait and catch a public bus? You seem typical of today's parents, who drop everything to run around after their children without ever expecting anything back – such as good behaviour.

Peter Frattall, Cardiff

Next Week's Quandary

Dear Hilary, I'm a form tutor in London. My Year Seven pupils are increasingly worried about violence on the streets – every new stabbing is making it worse – and I'm looking for ways of opening up the issue with them without making them even more anxious. Any suggestions would be welcome. It's a very real and sensitive subject for them.

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