The cardboard screen seems a bit excessive, but separation from one’s friends at lunch time was a commonly used punishment in my elementary school.
And it worked. Lunch was one of the few times during the day when students could exercise their rights to freedom of association. Being deprived of that right was aggravating and annoying and we tried to avoid it.
I’m not sure a first grader can be punished into making his mom not be flakey so it doesn’t happen again. Of course that’s if he wasn’t goofing off himself or something despite what the grandmother says.
Freegards
Yep, it was, but for things we had control over, namely our actions or behaviour. This boy can't control whether his mother's car will start.