Public school preventing grounding from computer, WWYD?

Parent Cafe
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<p>My high schooler needs to be grounded from the computer. But, with school being in session, I cannot ground her. Half her classes are “flipped classrooms” meaning she needs to spend hours every day, on the computer, at home, doing public school work. I do not want her on there! It is not like I can block all but one site. Each teacher maintains what she wants where ever she wants. Last year, one teacher used Twitter to give out assignments, another had an outside site, another used facebook. I have tried addressing this with the school, but, it falls on deaf ears. </p>

<p>So, I am forced to let her have the computer, supply her with a computer, and let her have access to things like facebook and twitter. I want to remove the computer completely from her having access. If she wants to access it at school with their computers, then it should be left at that. But I do not think I should be forced to supply her with a computer at home. This is not a short term issue. She got angry last year and threw down her expensive laptop and broke it. Now, a couple weeks ago, she got angry and started slamming down on the family computer and I had to grab that from her. Last year, she got angry with her brother and hit him with her Kindle and broke it. I simply do not want to give her yet another computer this year. </p>

<p>How would you handle the school? And I do not mean just telling her she has to drop out, flunk all her classes, and so on. If you are unfamiliar with the flipped classroom concept, please google it. There are many explanations (most of which makes it sound good, but it really is awful). The school library closes a half hour after school lets out so telling her to do everything at school will not work at all. The local public library is not a good option either, as they have limited hours, limited computers, and limited time on the computers within those times. They can only spend I think 30 minutes on the computer a day there and then have to sign out to give someone else a turn. But mostly, those computers are starting to go away due to the fact that people usually have their own. And our small town library does not have long hours.</p>

<p>(we are already working on the behavior problems, this is just about the school not allowing grounding) Oh, and all her classes are AP classes.</p>

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<p>I assume since she’s grounded from the computer it means there’s one in the household - right?</p>

<p>It’s unfortunate that just telling her she’s not permitted to use it for anything but school doesn’t seem to be adequate in your situation, i.e. apparently she’s not trustworthy.</p>

<p>If you have a computer, why can’t you place it in a public area, for example the dining room table or someplace in the living room, kitchen, etc. tell her what she’s permitted to do with it, i.e. schoolwork, and let her use it there where she knows you and other family members are liable to walk by at any time and see what she’s actually doing?</p>

<p>If you really wanted to you could put tracking software on that computer and use it in combination with limiting the websites she can get to. The tracking software could track everything she does. You could put it on and tell her you put it on so she’ll know to not even attempt to use it in an unapproved way.</p>

<p>As far as use to just get assignments - can’t she use a school computer to do that? It should only take a minute or two to just see the assignments and write them down. Of course, if she needs the computer to actually do the work then you might need to resort to the step above.</p>

<p>If she has a smart phone with a data plan remember she can do anything on that that she can do with a computer including getting assignments, doing something improper on the internet, etc. If she doesn’t have one but you do then you could let her use it to get the assignments (and you can tell her you’ll be able to track where she actually goes).</p>

<p>Another alternative is that you get her assignments for her either on the computer or the smartphone - she tells you where to get them, you get them, and provide them to her. </p>

<p>As far as the school goes - I think they should be willing to provide assignments in a way that doesn’t require a person to have a computer or smart phone outside of school to just be able to know what the assignments are. However, in this day and age, especially at the AP level, it’s not surprising some assignments would involve some computer work for access to info on the internet or even for making a power point presentation or for word processing.</p>

<p>If all her classes are AP she’s probably doing at least something right but I understand that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have other computer behavioral issues.</p>

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<p>The flipped classroom means they watch the lessons online and then do the homework. In the past, some teachers have had the home work submitted online too. Assignments are often given via things like Twitter and such, and they are told that they need to check those daily. The computers are in a public area, but, since this amount of work amounts to hours, and since she has to be on things like FB and Twitter, it is next to impossible to make sure she does not stop to chat or do whatever else. For example, she will be doing research, but then get off and end up reading stuff she just wants to read. Or, she will go to FB to check her class stuff, and end up chatting with friends or reading more than just the school stuff.</p>

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<p>

I see. That clarifies it. Just wondering - is this a public school or a private? I don’t see how they could have all of those requirements in a public school without some accommodations for the computer.</p>

<p>If you want to restrict her but she has to use it then she either needs to comply or you need to monitor what she does either directly (computer in a visible area) or indirectly through the monitoring software route. You could also do the restrictions as to which sites she can go to (through add-on software or through Windows firewall or your router’s firewall) and assist with getting the assignments from the sites she’d otherwise play on - Twitter, FB, etc.</p>

<p>Personally I think it’s stupid to post assignments like that. There’s no reason a teacher can’t give them the assignments the old fashioned way in addition to these other methods if they insist on that.</p>

<p>Just curious - does she have a smart phone with internet access? If so have you taken that away yet? She can do anything on a smart phone she could do on a computer so if she has that but you restrict her from the computer you haven’t accomplished your goal.</p>

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<p>She had a cell phone. She lost it, and it was replaced with an old one. She accidentally broke that one (that was actually an accident) and got a new one (which was also one of our old ones). Now she is grounded from it. None of them are smart phones. I wanted her to have a phone for when she drives to school, but, she never remembers to charge them, so they are always dead anyway. When she does get them charged, she spends all her time texting. Right now, I have her phone. I am considering canceling it completely.</p>

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<p>It sounds as if you don’t have the smart phone worry and I just noticed from the thread title that it’s a public school. If it’s a public school then they need to provide reasonable access to a PC if they’re going to require one - in my opinion (not that anyone really cares about my opinion and not that some schools, public and private don’t do stupid things).</p>

<p>Here’s the way I see it -

  • The school requires a certain amount of computer access that must be done outside of the school.
  • You want to restrict what she does on a computer.
  • She can’t be trusted to comply with your rules (i.e. of being restricted from certain activity on the computer).
  • She doesn’t have a smart phone so she can’t readily access the internet that way.
  • She does have a phone (sometimes) with texting capability.</p>

<p>Given that you could -

  • Delete the texting option from her phone plan and block it or get rid of the phone altogether. If all you did was block the texting then she could still use the old fashioned method of talking to her friends on a phone.
  • Move the home computer she’d use to a public area in the house.
  • Through firewall or software, limit which websites you’ll permit her to access. You can do this if you have administrative access and she’s a ‘user’ and, of course, if she doesn’t know your admin logon credentials.
  • You access the sites for her that have the HW assignments - like Twitter, FB, and the like on your admin account and let her write down the assignments.
  • An option is to put monitoring software on the computer that will track everything she does on it including keystrokes and let her know it’s there.</p>

<p>Or you could -

  • Realize the biggest issue is one of trust and work on that. You can’t restrict her from all social contact and if you set a rule she needs to abide by it without you having to constantly look over her shoulder to make sure she’s complying. Sometimes this kind of issue can get resolved with some good open and honest dialogue. Of course, it takes ‘two’ to have 'di’alogue.</p>

<p>Of course, I assume every now and then you’ll step back and reassess the situation and modify the restrictions as she improves whatever her behavior problem is. Given that she has a load of AP courses she likely not only is a decent student but also will likely need reasonable computer access for school.</p>

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<p>In your original post, you note that you are working on certain behavioral issues. Is the school aware of this? If so, the guidance office and resource teacher should be able to help you draw up a behavior management plan that the teachers can be notified of and held to - for example it may be possible to require that the teachers give her copies of their assignments in written form rather than just through twitter.</p>

<p>If the school is not aware of the behavior work that is on-going, why not? Start with that.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure I understand why you want to keep your daughter away from the computer. Is it because she has broken two devices, or because you don’t like how she spends her time online? If just the former, and she has some source of funds, like a job or savings, you can make it clear that she will have to pay for any intentional damage to any electronics and, if her violent temper is an ongoing issue, look into some family therapy to root out the cause and find effective strategies for dealing with it. If the latter, you can simply limit her computer time to what is reasonable for schoolwork completion. If she chooses to waste that time by visiting Facebook, etc., she won’t get her work done and her grades will suffer. For a girl in all AP classes, that will likely be an unacceptable result. But I really don’t get why it’s necessary to keep her from typical teen use of the computer. Twitter, Facebook, it’s all normal teen behavior and the way they run the social lives these days.</p>

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<p>I might also look into picking up an accidental damage warranty from somewhere like SquareTrade.com. I have a few friends that have used them, and they’ve been pretty happy with the coverage. If you hunt around a bit online you might even be able to find some coupons for a decent % off.</p>

<p>(I wouldn’t tell daughter you have coverage, though, and would require she pay for the replacement cost of the device. ;))</p>

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<p>I’m with happymom-the far more worrisome issue here is the destructive behavior and anger issues of someone old enough and smart enough to otherwise know better. Schools can be very accommodating sometimes and I would get some sort of crisis meeting going in which all of her teachers are brought on board with what is going on. I hope your D is getting treatment or in therapy. She’ll be on her own soon enough and needs to learn how to deal with people without destroying things.</p>

<p>MY own teen said, “Keystroke logger and use in a public room of the house” as a solution. Her school uses various technology for many assignments, beyond having to check online for what they are. So I asked what would work in her case, should we ever have to “ground” her from technology.</p>

<p>OP-I hope your D gets the help she needs.</p>

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<p>This sounds more like more of a power struggle than anything else. Are her grades poor? Is she slacking on family chores? Do you have evidence of drug or alcohol abuse? </p>

<p>You certainly can put some limits on (unplug the modem/wi fi at 10 pm, for example, if you think she is wasting too much time and then staying up too late doing homework). Just tell her what the new limits are and then stick to them. But honestly, my kids spend a fair amount of time on social media, and always seem to have seen the lastest episode of Dr. Who or Sherlock with 24 hours of release. But their grades are good, they (mostly) do their chores, they don’t drink or do drugs, and I see no need to restrict this access. It is not clear to me why you think she “needs to be grounded from the computer”.</p>

<p>If descruction of the computer is an issue, I would get a relatively inexpensive Windows desktop and put it in a public area. It is harder to pick up and slam a desktop… and she can’t whack her brother with it. If she gets an allowance, I suppose I might start withholding some as a “security deposit” on future hardware broken in a fit of temper – if she doesn’t break anything she gets the money when she goes to college. If she does, well, it goes toward the purchase of new equipment.</p>

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<p>When we found our son was playing video games and chatting with his friends instead of doing homework, we made our son use the computer where we could monitor it, usually in the kitchen. </p>

<p>You can also give her strict limits on what she is allowed, then install a key-logger software package like Big Brother.</p>

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<p>Going along with what happymom said, it seems like the behavior/anger issues are at the level of a medical diagnosis, and if so she can be granted a 504 which would require ADA accommodations by the school (just asked my H, a former pediatrician now public school teacher, so he’s aware of this from both angles.)</p>

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<p>Is this flipped classroom something she has to do because of behavioral issues with attending regular school? I hope this isn’t a trend schools are using to save money.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>It’s a trend and I hate it.</p>

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<p>It is a trend in education.</p>

<p>My daughter is not doing drugs. She is working with professionals (private) on a mood disorder. Her grades are fine. It is not about her grades. But, she has no money saved to pay to replace what she has broken. And when she gets on, she claims to get distracted by friends and interesting articles and such.</p>

<p>I thought of also, I could have her open a separate FB account that has no friends on it to get the teacher’s assignments, and same for twitter. I am not sure how well that will work considering she will have friends in her classes who will be able to see she has another account. But it might be worth a try.</p>

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<p>I had not heard of this before but it sounds awful. Your idea for a separate account seems like a good one. Is there no email option?
My kids in college use procrastination blockers but that won’t help you since the assignments are on social media.
Have you considered homeschooling? It seems like that’s what she’s doing but you might be able to find a curriculum which doesn’t require social media.</p>

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<p>

This is a study habits and focus issue that’s really independent of the computer (but exacerbated by it) and one that many/most teens are faced with nowadays. Working people are faced with it as well.</p>

<p>Looking simply at the above comment (i.e. not considering any other reasons you have for restriction and I’m not really questioning your judgment on this), I’d say she should continue to use the computer but to learn to focus and to ignore - to be able to compartmentalize her time - i.e. practice the idea that there’s a time for HW, a time for social media, a time for leisure activities including reading interesting articles. I’m guessing this is her last year of HS so it would be good to develop these skills now before she’s in college and you likely no longer have any control in this area (especially if she’s heading elsewhere to college). </p>

<p>We all need to develop those skills, especially nowadays in the face of increased distractions from the social media websites. One can learn to compartmentalize and ignore and focus as appropriate.</p>

<p>She can start by not staying logged into FB, IM, email and the like when on the computer so she doesn’t have the interrupting popups happening all the time while she’s trying to focus on HW. She can then allocate time - i.e. get onto FB, etc. to get the assignments, log out of them so she doesn’t get popup interruptions, spend 2 hours for HW, and only after that time enable FB and the like again.</p>

<p>As far as the ‘interesting articles’ - that sounds like a good thing to me that she’s interested in various articles, especially if they’re substantive (as opposed to Hollywood gossip or something). They can’t take the place of doing HW obviously but they would actually supplement her education/knowledge. I wouldn’t want to discourage her from reading them - just to learn to read them at the right time.</p>

<p>If she doesn’t learn to compartmentalize tasks and handle interruptions appropriately then she’ll likely have some problems with her all AP schedule, but she really can practice what I said if she understands it can be an issue and wants to improve and succeed in this area.</p>

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<p>GladGradDad-I think you’re missing the bigger problem, that this girl has destroyed two computers and a couple of phones because of her behavior (that is being treated/worked on). Letting her go on the computer and play around on it when she cannot be trusted not to destroy yet another one seems counterproductive to the OP, as I understand it. It would be like letting your kid wear his/her favorite expensive designer clothes after setting fire to the last clothes he had, or buying her a new car after she ignored speeding laws and crashed.Clearly, the issue is the mood disorder, but surely she deserves to have consequences imposed? </p>

<p>My kid is bright and likes to read about “interesting things” too, but when she’s done something she shouldn’t, her electronics are the first to go. And we have controls set such that she knows that we know when she’s NOT using them only for schoolwork. There are other ways for her to get “substantive” information, such as old-fashioned books printed on paper. They do not connect to distracting friends.</p>

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<p>Interesting thread. OP, has your daughter destroyed other things, or only electronics? Is there something about the electronics that trigger her anger?</p>

<p>This may sound far-fetched, but… teens can hear sounds that adults can’t. For example, the high pitched sounds. My kids were particularly over-sensitive to the “hum” from computers and tv’s. I wonder if sounds like this are triggering her anger.</p>