At this school, kids in trouble have a choice: go to detention or go on a hike

If you’re ever around high schoolers, you know that trouble can find them. Sometimes they’re late to class or they get angry and tell off a teacher. These can be mistakes, but infractions against the rules still have consequences. Usually, a troublemaker or a kid who had a bad day gets detention after school. However, a high school in Maine offers their students a choice if they’ve broken a rule: serve their detention or go on a hike.

Morse High School in Bath, Maine offers students the choice to either sit down in quiet detention or spend two hours walking on nature trails with their fellow students and the school counselor, Ms. Leslie Trundy. Trundy herself is an avid hiker and sees the benefits of walking outdoors as a way to reflect, relieve stress, and meditate. In fact, she claims that her hike along the Appalachian Trail made her decide to become a school counselor. Trundy figured that offering students the chance to walk instead of being cooped up indoors would provide students those same benefits while also creating opportunities for them to open up to her and their peers about any troubles that potentially led them to getting detention in the first place.

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“Students don’t benefit from more time indoors, and I wanted to offer them a mindset shift through walking outside,” she said to Maine Department of Education News. “I wanted to give them my attention and ear if they want it and be a trusted adult they know they can speak to when they’re ready.”

While Trundy listed the benefits of hiking versus sitting in a classroom after school, she doesn’t mean the hike is easier.

“Sometimes the hike feels really like a punishment for them, even though they've chosen it,” she said in an interview with NPR. “Like, they might've chosen it 'cause it was a lessening sentence, but it did feel like they were having to expend effort.”

“It makes you breathe heavily, obviously. And it feels like an accomplishment almost,” said student Nicholas Tanguay. Tanguay prefers the hikes rather than detention as it allows him to work out negativity and reflect rather than stew about the problems inside a classroom.

So far, Trundy hasn’t had a hiking session with less than three students and she hasn’t had to cancel a hike due to weather. At one point, she even provided ponchos for the students to wear to walk in the rain. Based on this success, Trundy hopes to continue this program for years to come.

While it’s difficult to creatively discipline at school in ways that helps kids address the wrongful behavior with a more “positive punishment,” it can be more difficult at home, especially when you’re parenting pre-teens to teenagers. They’re a little bit too old for time-outs and withholding certain things such as phones don’t really work, and withdrawing them from physical activities such as recess or sports isn’t encouraged either. But that’s not to say you can’t find kind ways to discipline your child that are still effective.

Therapists recommend thoroughly discussing the problem with your child and your expectations. Along with your child, you can discuss together the best way for them to make amends and the ramifications should the discussed behavior become an issue again. By giving your child choices with clear consequences that they agree to, they will either behave differently or be held to the consequences they themselves chose.

However, when it comes to disciplining kids at home, it is up to the parents and the advice they take to heart from vetted child experts and the law. In any case, it might be good to go take a walk to think it over.