Ever since the paddle was removed from the list of legal punishments in public schools, they have started using detention. This requires a student to take time out of his/her day and spend it isolated in a classroom. The question for many in charge of discipline is, “When is the best time to have detention?” Schools have tried in school suspension, after school detention, and lunch detention to varying degrees of success. A more successful strategy would be to have students serve detention on Saturdays.

A teenager’s favorite day of the week is Saturday. On Saturday, students go to ball games, the movies, dates etc… Most schools hold detention during a regular school day, where the student leaves classes and goes to sit in another classroom. Many students call this punishment time “sleep time.” They get out of class for a period of time and in many cases just sits in detention for an hour or so. If schools started having detention on Saturday, the students would miss this free time. Instead of the student going to a party or other activities, they would have to go to school and serve detention. Research shows that detention on Saturdays is most effective.

Parents can sometimes be a child’s worst enemy in life, so, when school disciplinarians bring parents into the equation, the student gets punished at home and at school. If a student has to serve detention on Saturday, not only does the student have to give up part of his/her day, but the parents may also have to give up their time to take the student to school. Saturday detention also interferes with family trips to the lake, beach, Dollywood… After multiple offenses, the adult, will eventually get tired of losing their Saturday and start punishing their child at home as well.

After five days of waking up early, we students have one day to sleep in, assuming that we go to church on Sunday. Saturday finally comes, and we get to sleep in. Now, if schools begin to have detention on Saturdays then there goes the extra sleep-in time. When teenagers are deprived of their only extra sleep time, then they begin to think about whether or not getting in trouble is worth it or not.

By having detention on Saturdays, students will lose their extra sleep, their free day, and will upset their parents by making them take time out of their day to take them to school. This is a very effective punishment and should be put in place as soon as possible. Would you want to lose your Saturday?