Why Does My Kid Keep Getting in Trouble at School? What I Learned As A Mom
My phone buzzed at 1:17 pm last Wednesday, right as my drip coffee finished dripping. I wiped apple sauce off my wrist and picked it up, and there it was, the text from the elementary school office I’d grown to dread: Can you swing by after dismissal? We’ve got another referral for Leo.
Leo’s in third grade, and that week it was his third. I’d already texted my husband that morning saying if we got one more, we were pulling his video games for the weekend and having another big talk about respecting rules. When I pulled into the parking lot, he was slouched against the office brick wall, his neon green sneakers scuffed from climbing the slide, hood pulled up over his messy brown hair. He kicked a loose piece of gravel when I walked up, and didn’t say anything until we got to the car. Before I could turn the key, he mumbled into his sweatshirt: “I got in trouble again.”
His voice was so small I almost didn’t hear it. I’d been ready to launch into the same lecture I gave the week before, and the week before that—about how good kids don’t draw on desks, how knocking over a first grader’s block tower is rude, how talking through read-aloud is unfair to the teacher and the other kids. But something in the way he said “again” stopped me. He wasn’t being defiant. He was defeated.
We drove home in silence, and when we pulled into the driveway, he climbed out and sat down on the weathered front porch step, the one with the loose board that creaks when you shift your weight. I followed him, instead of herding him inside for a lecture, and sat down next to him. I asked him what it feels like, right before he gets in trouble, not what he did wrong. He picked at a splinter in the step and said it all just happens too fast. After lunch, his ADHD meds (we’ve been navigating this for a year, adjusted the dose just last month) wear off, and his brain starts jumping from one thing to the next before he can stop it. He drew on the desk because his hands had to do something, and he forgot you can’t do that. He knocked the block tower over because he was running to catch his friend before recess ended, he didn’t mean it, but when he stopped he realized everyone was looking, so he just ran away instead of saying sorry because he knew he’d get in trouble anyway.
I’d spent months thinking repeated trouble meant he didn’t care enough to stop. I’d tried every consequence I could think of—no screen time, no playdates, extra chores, big talks about responsibility. All that did was make him say “I got in trouble again” before anyone could even talk to him, like he was already expecting to be bad, like it was just part of who he was.
The next day I went in to talk to his teacher, Ms. Henderson, instead of just apologizing and heading home. I didn’t ask for special treatment, I just asked if we could try three small, low-effort changes. First, Leo could keep a silent fidget cube in his desk for after lunch, when he needs his hands busy to focus. I sent it in with a note that it gets put away if it distracts anyone else. Second, if he needs to move, he can volunteer to pass out worksheets or water the class plant at any time, no need to raise his hand and ask permission in front of everyone. Third, if he messes up, he can fix it right away—apologize to the kid, wipe off the desk—before anyone writes a referral, instead of hiding it to avoid trouble.
At home, I changed what I do when I get the text from the office. I don’t plan the punishment before I talk to him. I start with two specific questions: “Were you doing something you thought you needed to feel okay, or were you trying to hurt someone or break a rule on purpose?” So far, every single time it’s been the first. Then we talk through what we can adjust, instead of taking away screen time first. If he finishes work early and gets chatty, we send in a pocket word search book he keeps in his desk for when he’s done. If he’s rushing in line and knocks something over, we practice pausing for two slow breaths before he moves, to check what’s around him.
It’s not like this fixed everything. Last week I got another referral, for throwing an eraser across the room when he was frustrated with his spelling test. We still have bad days. I still get that twist in my chest when I see the school’s area code pop up on my phone. I still catch myself defaulting to lectures some days, when I’m tired from work and just want the whole thing to stop.
But the difference is, Leo doesn’t mumble “I got in trouble again” like he’s a bad kid now. He says it like it’s a problem we can fix, not a fact about who he is. Last week after the eraser incident, he came home and told me his hand slipped when he was squeezing it too hard, and next time he’ll put his head down for a minute instead. We didn’t take away his game night, we just added a soft stress ball to his backpack for test days.
I used to read all the posts that said repeated misbehavior is a test of boundaries, that if you just stick to consistent consequences it’ll go away. And that works for a lot of kids, I know. But for my kid, and a lot of kids I see getting labeled as troublemakers over and over, the problem wasn’t that he didn’t know the rules. It was that he couldn’t follow them with the brain and body he has, until we gave him small, simple ways to meet his needs without breaking the rules.
We’re still figuring it out. Some weeks are better than others. I don’t have a perfect solution, just this: the next time your kid says “I got in trouble again,” before you hand out the consequence, ask them what their brain was needing that day. More often than not, that’s where the answer starts.
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