Suspension Works Because It Inconveniences the Parent
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues that part of what makes suspension effective is that it requires parental involvement — because keeping a student home demands the parent's attention.
Key Takeaways
- Parental inconvenience drives change - When suspension requires a parent to stay home or make arrangements, it engages the family in addressing the behavior
- In-school alternatives avoid this mechanism - Keeping the student at school removes the parental accountability component
- Family engagement is essential - Effective discipline often requires getting parents involved, and suspension is one of the few tools that guarantees it
Transcript
One reason suspension works so well as a consequence is that it inconveniences the parent.
It works as a way of getting the parent's attention when a lot of what we do in schools often does not really come to parents' attention.
You know, if we say a student is having a lot of difficulties in school, well, as long as the kid is in school, a lot of times parents don't really care.
They don't really get involved that much.
And a lot of people have been saying in my comments, well, suspension can be reinforcing for the student if the student wants to go home, play video games, not have to do their work, et cetera.
And maybe that's true.
Maybe that could be something that they want.
But as to whether sending a student home actually incentivizes bad behavior, I think has a lot to do with how the parents respond to the consequence because if the parents are completely uninvolved and we imagine this kid just sitting at home getting to do whatever they want then yeah that's one thing but if the parent has been greatly inconvenienced by a consequence well guess what parents pass on their inconveniencedness to their kids and are happy to make sure that they do not have a good time that they do not have a vacation playing video games when they are at home so When we take away options for consequences like suspension, and especially for younger kids, one of the things we didn't really realize we were giving up was the ability to inconvenience parents and make their child's behavior their responsibility right like when we say we're going to keep your kid at school no matter what no matter what they do no matter how violent they are no matter how disruptive they are what we're essentially saying is it's never your problem parent as long as it's school hours it's our problem we've got this you don't ever have to worry about it and parents have a remarkable ability to actually do something about their child's behavior when we make it their problem if we never make it their problem many many parents have demonstrated over the last couple of years now that they're fine with that.
They're never going to take it on as a problem.
If their kid is at school and causing all kinds of trouble, it's not their problem.
So let me know what you think about this.
I mean, I'm not generally a fan of, you know, making parents' lives difficult, but I also think we can't do parents' jobs for them.
We need to be partners.
We need to do the school part.
Parents need to do the parenting part.
And if that means out-of-school consequences that inconvenience the parent, I am absolutely okay with that.
Let me know what you think.