This is some pretty disturbing news footage, because I didn’t see the little girl bucking when the cops came, only when the teacher was trying to subdue her. And frankly, the cuffs were uncalled for – there should have been a trained child psychologist called in to talk with the kid, not cops.
I’m so p*ssed I can hardly type.
1- this was the 2nd time in 10 days that the girl had had a tantrum like this.
2- the other children in the classroom lost valuable time due to this child’s lack of respect.
3-the girl had already tore up the classroom (including the teacher’s personal possessions as well as her classmates’ posted work), the Assistant Principal’s office, and had HIT the AP several times.
Now the girl’s mother (and I use the term loosely), who told the office she “couldn’t leave work” is saying she is going to sue. If that woman had done her job (including dropping everything to take control of her child) and instructed her child to respect others and their property when she was younger we would not have this problem. This willful child has never been reprimanded at home for saying “NO!” to adults, tearing up others property, and HITTING adults. Therefore, she thinks her behavior is OK.
I personally think the parents of the kids in that classroom should sue the “mother” for the educational time that their children lost due to that girls poor home training. I also think that the girl should be taken from the “mother” because IMHO, she is an unfit parent.
Trained child psychologist? More like a young priest and an old priest. IMHO, that kid deserved a straightjacket.
I couldn’t see the video due to a work firewall, so I’ll comment on the story. The only tragedy here is the mothers parenting skills. Handcuffing an unpredictable and out of control child is appropriate given the circumstances. And as I understand it, she supposedly quieted down when the police arrived. But that doesn’t change the fact that she is a little out of her element. She already had disrespect for the people around her, what makes you think that she won’t act up again while in the presence of police? This is hardly the worst thing in the world. I hope she gets the direction she needs to be a productive member of society, and also learns that if you’re disruptive, there are consequences. I certainly hope the mother gets seriously bitch slapped by DCFS (or other equivalent family services).
The video is downloading very slowly in chunks on my dial-up connection, so I haven’t seen the whole thing yet.
Important: I do not have kids.
First: When I was a kid, my parents signed a form that allowed school officials to administer corporal punishment. That’s right; if the parents consented, then students could be spanked. As far as I know, none of my schoolmates were ever spanked; but the threat was there, and I never saw anyone get out of control in the classroom. IMO the threat of a spanking can be a useful tool.
Second: The video I’ve seen so far shows the teacher trying to block the little girl by standing in her way. I don’t have kids, but I do know that if you put roadblocks in front of a child they tend to grow more and more frustrated. That is, they don’t say, ‘Hm. I can’t do what I want. I guess I’ll listen to reason and sit down.’ They get mad, and try harder to get around the ‘roadblock’. This can be seen in the video I’ve been able to see. She obviously has made a mess, but she’s still not being violent. When the teacher keeps getting in her way, she starts climbing on the table. So the teacher takes her off the table and then lets her go!. So now she’s frustrated again and she starts swinging. What does the teacher do? She tells the little girl not to touch her!
IMO this is how the situation should have been handled: When the girl became disruptive, the teacher should have made her sit down. The teacher has a size advantage. She should have used it. If the girl would not stay in her seat, the teacher should have immediately taken her by the hand and removed her from the classroom.
What the teacher should not have done is let her wander around the classroom being destructive. Trying to reason with a child is all very well, but if it doesn’t work you need to order the child and make the child behave. ‘You need to stop! That is not acceptable,’ said in a firm but reasonable voice may be touchy-feely-joss-stick-Earth-Mother-feel-good psychology, but sometime you just have to cloud up and rain all over a kid for a quick, decisive victory.
And remove the disruptive kid from the class ASAP. If the other kids see that the teacher will let the disruptive child do what it wants, then they will learn that they might be able to do it as well. If the child is quickly removed from the class, it is left to the other children’s imagination what happened to her. What they don’t know will scare the hell out of them.
That said, I don’t think handcuffs were appropriate. Take her by the hand and take her to the headmaster’s office ASAP. You don’t need cuffs for that.
I have seen the video. From my understanding, the teacher was running the tape so she could evaluate her own teaching skills.
There are VERY firm rules about touching students. They are not allowed to physically restrain students. The teacher, IMHO, acted appropriately. She touched the child no more than was absolutely necessary to keep the child from injuring herself or others. She blocked the child with her body to prevent her from doing too much damage. You can see that in the video when the child is reaching for the cork board, pulling down papers - the teacher moves the child back gently, immediately lets go of her, and steps in front of the board. When the child is on the table, the teacher gently lifts her down and sets her back on the floor and steps back. At no point did the teacher really lose her temper - the only time she raised her voice was when the child was screaming, and she did it so the child could hear her, not in anger or temper.
I’m not a teacher, and that’s a good thing. They’d have arrested ME for slamming that kid’s head into a desk.
I’m not keen on the idea of putting a small child in handcuffs in general, but this story is being sensationalized to make it seem as though some brutal, heartless police officers wrenched her hands behind her back and tossed her willy-nilly into a squad car, and that does not seem to be the case at all. Even as she is being cuffed, the officers approached her gently and spoke to her quietly
This child was a danger to herself and to others, and while teachers aren’t allowed to physically restrain someone, cops are. She had to be removed from the school and she had to be prevented from doing any further damage. I don’t think any of the adults involved acted inappropriately. I don’t know enough about the mother to have a real opinion, but my knee-jerk reaction is that there is SOMETHING wrong at home.
Things have changed since I was a kid.
The assistant principal should make a training video on Crisis Prevention Intervention. Seriously… she was absolutely textbook in her following of the program, and that’s going to save her should the dumbass egg donor decide to sue her. This, from the egg donor’s lawyer, shows how utterly uninformed they are about this program:
The technique is called “physical proximity” and is one of the standard de-escalating techniques- you use your body to block the child from attaining their negative goal, while instructing them in the proper choice.
There’s a natural horsemanship technique called “roundpenning.” The ultimate goal, put in absolute base terms, is to increase the horse’s anxiety level while offering it the choice to either maintain or reduce its anxiety- eventually the horse realises that the least stressful place is standing calmly by its owner. Physical proximity works in a very similar way, with the added bonus of keeping the child from doing something harmful to themself or someone else.
Look closely at the video, when the police come in. That is not the picture of a calm child. Her breathing is labored, her legs are moving, and she’s gripping the arms of the chair. This is not a child the police would be willing to take chances on- she was clearly handcuffed for everyone’s safety, and I think it won’t take much for an investigation to say it was the right decision.
Incidentally, the police did NOT put the child over the table. You can clearly see her throwing herself on the table as they’re holding her.
That A.P. was lucky as hell she didn’t get kicked in the head while the little girl was standing on the table- that would’ve been our kids’ first action.
They should test that kid for uppers - she is out of control. Too bad the teacher wasn’t allowed to use handcuffs herself – it seemed to finally get that girl’s attention.
Things have changed a LOT since you were a kid, Johnny. Most teachers I know won’t even lead a kid by the hand these days for fear of being slapped with charges of physical or sexual abuse. It’s not so unreasonable, really; kids and parents can come up with some very…interesting versions of interactions, and even if the allegations are completely unfounded, you might as well just kiss your job goodbye.
What bothers me (besides the “mother”) is the sensationalism. Most news reports I’ve seen have presented this as a child acting up a bit, then being brutally restrained by police. I would know little to nothing of the backstory if I hadn’t taken the time to read about it.
I hope that CPS (or whoever) gets involved, something is seriously wrong with that girl (mentally or otherwise) and this situation needs to be fully investigated. The educators and the cops behaved MUCH better than I would have and this was handled in a very proper and proffesional manner IMO.
And now the redneck version:
That kid needs a serious ass whoopin’.
Unclviny
I heard in the report that they evacuated the classroom to deal with this kid! Yes, I understand it’s probably standard procedure, but WTF??? You’d think the kid had a loaded gun!
I think the Assistant Principal did great.
And I also think the kid’s rotten mother is going to milk this for all it’s worth. Whadya bet Jesse Jackson gets in on this?
Or yeah … what LifeOnWry said.
That kid’s definitely not right in the head, I wonder what’s going on at home.
I doubt she’s disciplined at home, either.
I’m with you Carm5773!
As one commentater on TV said “My dad would have busted my butt and apologized to the teacher, et.al.” Since that would bruise the little darlings id maybe isolation should have been tried and with no audience it would have died down quickly. Obviously the child desire attention and gets on her own terms.
The mother is not quite with the education thing and should not have had any children.
When I was a senior in high school, I did some assistant teaching work (called “peer tutoring”) for half a year with a sixth grade class. It quickly became obvious which children weren’t being disciplined at home. Sometimes, this lack of discipline came as the result of parents who just didn’t care. In other cases, however, the parent(s) believed that their child could do no wrong - how dare we put their Little Miss Perfect at a table by herself in the study area for spitting on another student or talking back to the teacher during a lesson? She’s just being a child, after all! :rolleyes: Though I never heard the term “indigo child” used, that line of thinking seems to be what these parents were trying to tell us.
Don’t you love terms like “indigo child”?
It’s just another way for people to avoid taking responsibility for themselves, or, in this case, their children.
Okay, I looked up ‘indigo child’. Sounds like New Age Crap to me.
…made up by a bunch of crystal-rubbing losers too afraid to discipline their own children for fear of “scarring them for life”. Lemme tell ya something, a prison sentence for violent behavior is gonna be a helluva lot more scarring than a few brief instances of discipline as a child.