When the cops arrived, she was as settled as she could be at the moment. I think that they did have a choice. Perhaps, their other alternatives wouldn’t’ve worked and they would’ve been left no option. However, w/o trying them we can’t know. I think the cuffs came out prematurely.
Not One Thing. Is it idiocy to waste the big guns on 5 year olds? (crack babies aside…maybe) YES!
I firmly believe that 5 year olds behave as you allow them to behave. Neither the 5 year olds that I taught nor my my own 5 year old ( now 13) learnt that destroying anything was the road to “inner peace” 
I have never layed a hand on my child (ok I lie and he loves telling the story, he was 3 and about to burn himself on the hot tap. I whacked his hand) but you can bet that this 13 yr old doesn’t break the rules. Am I in denial? No. He is a teenager he will break them soon I’m sure.
That is my point. Teachers of 5 yr olds expect the demons. They see them coming. They know how to handle them.
This wee demon was casught up in cameras and police and handcuffs and the what comes next. I’m just glad I’m not the next adult in authority because that now means police. What wil they threaten her with at 10? The Taliban?
Jesus Christ.
From the description of the video tape, I expected to see, well, a hell of a lot worse behavior than I did. I am appalled that from the video tape, some of you geniuses have deduced: 1) the child should be aborted; 2) corporal punishment will change this child’s behavior; 3) corporal punishment hasn’t been used at home for this child.
Is the child’s behavior unacceptable? Absolutely. It is not, however, consistent with what I think a reasonable person would regard as the connotation of “going ape,” nor is it “the most undersocialized” behavior five year olds show.
Did the school personnel do a good job in terms of avoiding harm befalling anyone? Absolutely. Did the school personnel do a good job in terms of managing the incident on the whole? No, with the caveat that I don’t know what their existing rules, practice or protocol for such a circumstance are, but if they are exemplified by the actions shown in the video, they are insufficient.
They fail primarily for the reasons that Scoundrel Swanswater identified. During the portion of tape we can see, they issue few commands and give no warnings as to consequences. There are apparently no consequences given, apart from having to have her go to the principal’s office. If they are prevented from redirecting her by physically taking hold of her arm or otherwise moving her to another location without hurting her, I understand the rationale, but would differ. However, I cannot see any rationale for a rule that indicates that if a child misbehaves, they should not be warned of any consequences. Perhaps they had run through the consequences they could think of prior to the beginning of the video tape. This is not known.
The bottom line is that they should be able to issue a command, issue a warning for failure to comply with the command, and execute the consequence given in the warning. If the behavior is disruptive enough, which for me would include failing to be seated or be quiet, they should be allowed to direct the child to another location, and make a reasonable effort to move them there without hurting anyone. If this fails, then calling the police would be appropriate. However, after letting her wander around the room for five minutes, they ask her to accompany them to “that little room to chill out.” Yet, somehow, she ends up in the assistant principal’s office. Without further information, we cannot know the full details, but it appears to me that they were able to peaceably move her to a calm down room when they tried to do so, and that they subsequently put her in the principal’s office, which would seem a very foolhardy decision. Why did they wait so long to try to get her to a calm down room? Why did they end up with her in someone’s office?
Here’s where my speculation gets the best of me, but given the existing history that the comments of the police officer reveal, I am somewhat dubious of the innocent explanation for having the camera in the room that day. If she hadn’t ended up in the principal’s office rather than “in that little room to chill out,” would we have video of an incident worth watching and talking about?
Were the cuffs necessary? At the time they were used, absolutely not. She is sitting calmly in the chair when the police arrive, and the first thing they tell her is that she has to calm down. They then stand her up and cuff her, apparently based on some prior interaction. Without commanding her to accompany them, there is no way to know that she needed to be handcuffed.
Is the cuffing particularly problematic? No. In the bigger picture, the use of the handcuffs themselves, and the manner in which they applied them would not likely have created any problem that did not previously exist for the child. The role that they will play now, due to the notoriety she has experienced and the context being established for this incident in the larger “story” of her life, will elevate the salience for her and may indeed influence her future behavior.
Airman Doors, I hate calling you out while in the midst of a Steeler high, anticipating the impact Heath Miller might make, but damn, someone smacked you upside the head with a troglodyte bone today. You remind me of most of the fathers and some of the mothers who bring their children to me for evaluations or therapy. “My dad used a good ass-whuppin’ every now and then, I don’t see why I shouldn’t. Can’t take away my right to use some ‘good old fashioned’ discipline.” Well, then, I always want to say, why the fuck are you here, sitting in my office? (Hint: they are there because physical punishment hasn’t worked to elicit the behavior they desire.)
Good god man, do you really believe that physical punishment has not been used with this child? I don’t know anything about the family, but I would wager that it has. In general, for children with disruptive behavior problems and poor parenting, it is probably a hell of a lot worse than you ever got it (unless you suffered from a combination of a disruptive behavior problem and bad parenting). It is the oldest goddamn trick in the book, and it probably worked about as well back in the halcyon days when children never aggressed as well as it does today. Which is to say that it never helps, and often causes more problems than it solves. It is pretty much the end result of most bad parenting. Let me ask you this: how much physical punishment is appropriate, do you think? Why do you draw the line where you do?
Right now a colleague and I are putting together a paper using data from two longitudinal data sets (meaning multiple observations: in our case, at least annual assessments over at least 5 years during adolescence), a smaller clinic referred study (children who were included in the study because they were already showing behavioral problems or emotional disorders) and a community based study of a (quite large) sample of children.
In both datasets, the use of physical punishment predicts increases in the level of aggressive and oppositional behavior in the next year, even after you account for the previous level of such behaviors. Remember, this is true in both the clinic sample, but also in the community sample.
We’ve been through the debate about stimulant medications numerous times here (although you seem to discount the possibility that both behavioral and mood disorders might exist in children and adolescents, which extends the dubiousness of your argument markedly.) In short, you are talking out of your ass, but I will point out that you may research the results of a huge, multisite national study called the MTA study, which used rigorous protocols for medications and behavioral interventions for ADHD, and found that children responded most successfully to the combination of both, followed by medication alone, followed by behavioral treatment, followed by treatment as usual.
What I find most interesting about your contributions is that you are so strongly supportive of physical punishment and at the same time strongly opposed to medications. (If the above discussion of the evidence is not clear, let me sum up, you have it ass backwards). Clearly you prefer physical punishment to medications, which makes me wonder whether there is something that you like about physical punishment for children.
Yep. Two things. First, as you said, it worked for me. It worked for Pavlov. Conditioned response works virtually everywhere it is tried. Second, I will not allow my child to be drugged just because he’s being a hyperactive kid. Tell me and I will take care of the problem. If he’s depressed we’ll work through it. But I don’t believe in drugging kids, and I really don’t believe in the myriad of diseases that are seemingly invented out of thin air to rationalize every bad behavior that someone has. Suddenly everyone has a condition, right? Wrong. Hormone imbalance? Hah! You’re supposed to have a hormone imbalance in school. It’s called puberty. That stiff thing in your pants is normal, Junior.
Do I intend to beat my kid? Of course not. But he will learn what is what, and if he does it with a minimum of spanking, mores the better for him.
Isn’t it bizarre that something so basic as rearing children, something the human race has done literally since before history, results in so many differing opinions about what should be done in situations such as this?
Raising the next batch of humans is really the oldest profession, and here were are in the dawn of the 21st century and we cannot come to a consensus about something one might think should have been an exact science centuries ago.
Reason number 468 I will never have kids.
Never a truer word.
Maybe Mom should be worried about getting the little girl some help, not a fat paycheck from a lawsuit.
And fuck Katie Couric for her “non-biased” reporting this morning. ( cant quote her but) She was just appalled by such excessive restraint…Way to let the viewer form an opinion.
Ah yes, the famous experiment where Pavolv beat dogs that didn’t salivate at the sound of a bell.
:rolleyes:
They’d probably have been MORE willing to do so because there’d be no worries about someone screaming racism.
As far as the mom not coming to get her, that doesn’t bother me so much because some employers are assholes. Yes, it’d be nice if we lived in a world where companies encouraged their employees to put their family first, but they don’t. I suppose the mother COULD have walked out on her job, but then she’d not only be a mom with a problem child, she’d be an unemployed mom, too. Maybe even on welfare for a while – truly the unforgiveable sin.
:rolleyes:
ISTM that humility is exactly what she needs. The fear of humiliation prevents me from doing all sorts of socially unacceptable things.
I highly doubt that her classmates will be taunting her about this a decade from now. In the meantime the association of extreme tantrums => social ostracism is a very healthy one IMO.
Well, you’ve apparently been conditioned to see physical punishment as a good intervention, I’ll grant you that. Pavlov, as you know, conditioned dogs to salivate to a ringing bell by pairing the ringing bell to the presentation of meat. He did not spank the dogs to change their behavior. By bringing him up, you are actually leading down the road to the types of behavioral interventions that are successful, although what we are really talking about is operant conditioning (a la B.F. Skinner, for one example), rather than classical conditioning. Pair compliance in response to a command with a reinforcer, and you increase the likelihood of future compliance. Punishment (and negative reinforcement, which is a separate thing) are different. Punishment is the application of an undesirable stimulus in conjunction with unwanted behavior to reduce the likelihood of that behavior occurring in the future. Do you think Pavlov would have been more successful at eliciting salivation by using positive reinforcement or punishment?
More to the point, you seem to be arguing that because a behavior can be successfully conditioned, the process is therefore acceptable. To that I say “Fuck, are you crazy?” Surely I don’t need to generate a list of all the ways you might elicit a desired response from someone that are nevertheless inappropriate or illegal. Apart from that, your datum pales in comparison to many other people’s data.
However, punishment is one component of a good behavioral intervention strategy, which may take forms such as time outs, loss of privileges, or response costs in a token economy.
You are a man among men. Surely you must look down upon the fathers of millions of people with mental illness who cannot simply take care of their children’s problems with disdain. While I admire your belief in yourself, I simply hope that you are never faced with such a problem.
Believe it or not. I wish that you could will them out of existence. Please try harder, for all our sakes. Seriously, do you believe that anxiety disorders exist at all? Do you discount all instances of depression? How about schizophrenia? How do you determine which disorders exist and which do not?
No. You are talking out of your ass with no regard to the prevalence rates (or I suspect with any knowledge of) the prevalence rates for disorders or the volumes of research that painstakingly demonstrate where our current mental health nosology works well and where it doesn’t. Arguing from ignorance is just so unattractive.
What the fuck are you babbling about here? Hormone imbalance? For which mental health conditions is a hormone imbalance the best current explanation? For which disorders has puberty been identified as a causal mechanism? (There is some evidence that puberty enhances the development of Conduct Disorder for girls, likely via a link between early pubertal development and increased contact with older boys, but this is not regarded as an explanation of the cause of the disorder.) For which disorders are pubertal or adolescent erections regarded as a causal mechanism?
Well, I am truly heartened to hear this. Good luck to you.
Well you know, punishment in an open environment is markedly different from reward in a closed laboratory setting.
You’re really trying to talk about Skinner anyway, not Pavlov.
As the mother of a fairly well-behaved 10 yr old, I commend the actions of this school. I would be so grateful that they took the time to videotape the tantrum and the method used to deal with said tantrum. I would take this videotape directly to the nearest child psychologist to attempt to identify the issue with my childs behavior. That’s how decent parents react. Do I think that the handcuffs were a little excessive? Perhaps, but they certainly weren’t the worst thing that could’ve happened. What if they didn’t cuff her and she grabbed and bit an officer? WHAT IF SHE GRABBED AT THEIR GUNS?! Eee. I’d much rather explain to my child “The policemen put you in handcuffs because they weren’t sure they could trust you not to act out.” than have my child biting, hitting and grabbing at people and their (possibly dangerous) possessions.
My cousin had a very emotionally challenged son who came at me with a knife at the tender age of 7 (I believe I was 13 or so) and I would’ve given ANYTHING for three officers and a pair of handcuffs. I firmly believe that it’s better to be overcautious than sorry.
The two pieces of this story that I simply cannot forgive:
Mom threatening to sue for what was truly the best that the school could do to deal with HER out of control child.
and
Making this video publically accessable. God, how embarrassing for that kid. My sister used to throw (much milder) tantrums and my (well-intentioned but often misdirected) parents decided to show a video of one of her less than shining moments to her (then) fiance’. THE HORROR!!
I need to disagree with you here, and would point out what I said waaaay back on page one of this thread:
She dropped into the chair, true, but if you really evaluate her from a physical, behavioral standpoint, that’s a rabbit ready to run. I stand by my assertion that handcuffing was the right thing to do. Besides, this was probably the first time an adult told her something (“I said I’d handcuff you next time”) and followed through on it. Consistency is almost never a bad thing.
Just to address some questions on why the police were called: at our facility, where all the staff are trained in behavioral control and restraint, where we have policies for escorting, restraining*, seclusion, and isolation, as well as special behavioral control rooms, we still call out the police on occasion. If a child cannot be calmed, or there is a reason we cannot follow policy (some kids are unable to be restrained or secluded), we call the police. Oftentimes they just need to be visible, and the situation resolves itself. Sometimes they need to remove the child. So it is not over-the-top for a school, which doesn’t have a clear policy in place, to have to call in the police for a situation like this.
Also as an aside… at our facility, the staff are all training in TCI (what you saw the teacher using) and restraint. Our on-site classroom teachers are trained only in TCI and by law are not allowed to lay hands on the children, either to escort or restrain. This has made for some very interesting incidents, when the kids realise that the teachers aren’t restraint trained and can’t put hands on them. Mr. Kitty’s ex-wife is a SEBD teacher at a local public high school, and she is also trained only in TCI and not allowed to lay hands on her students.
[sub]*Escorts, incidentally, require a minimum of two staff. Restraints require a minimum of three.[/sub]
Indeed. Which, from my POV, indicates a couple of things:
[ul][li]The child was not “out of control”. Almost the instant she spotted the police, her behavior changed radically in a way that did not happen before. She could have calmed down previously, but did not.[*]The “New Age/granola/you better not even touch the precious angel” approach was not working. The instant a couple of folks turned up who the child had reason to believe were going to put an end to her misbehavior with defiinite action - bang, compliance. Funny, that.[/ul][/li]
What seems to have happened was the school personnel were attempting to follow the rules, and getting nowhere. Accordingly, they summoned the only folks who could do what should have been done immediately - force the child to do something she did not want to do.
If this were a sane world, the teacher would have directed the child to sit down and be quiet using her normal voice. Failure to comply results in the directive being re-issued using the Command Voice. Failure to comply results in the teacher holding the child down - restraining her, in other words, as the handcuffs did. This triggers a tantrum, obviously, which is fine - you then restrain them while the tantrum runs its course. No spanking is necessary, nor even any other form of punishment. Then the child is required to do what she should have done in the first place - sit down and behave. This is much easier, after the tantrum has tired the child out somewhat, and also makes subsequent interaction much easier to manage - Teacher Means Business is a key lesson. Tantrums don’t change that, the undoubted fact that your mother is an irresponsible bitch doesn’t change that - you have to do what the teacher says.
But we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a world where the police and the courts have to get involved the first time some child encounters the notion of “discipline”.
Regards,
Shodan
Perhaps you’re right, perhaps you’re not. All it would’ve taken is for the police to’ve told her she was going to get in the cruiser. If she then resisted, then so be it. It seems that this small and quick “test” should’ve been performed.
FWIW, I don’t think this is what the officer said. He said that he was the one she told her mom had put her in handcuffs. The girls had apparently told her mother that this officer in particular had put her in handcuffs.
Well, I looked at the tape again, and I retract my description of her as calmly sitting in the chair. She is swinging her legs. However, I don’t think it is clear that her “breathing is labored” or that she is gripping the arms of the chair.
However, more to the point, she hasn’t done anything in a “rabbit”-like fashion all day (although granted the police wouldn’t know that). Rather, she has moved fairly deliberately around the room. More tellingly, somehow the school personnel were able to move her from room to room without cuffs. How did they achieve this? Why couldn’t the police achieve the same results?
With all due respect, folks. Speculation, assumptions, innuendo and hyperbole!
No one on this board has any more insight into this situation than what has been seen on a video clip. Not that some of the speculation doesn’t merit some consideration, but not to the point that you end up calling each other names.
We apparently have some professionals responding to this thread and you would be advised to consider what they are saying.
Airman , I really do see your POV but most of it is just WRONG. I would like to take you to work with me for one 12-hr shift and see the effect it would have on your attitude towards mental illness. I truly believe you would be shocked. I never talk about work to “outsiders” because most people think I’m making it up. Believe you or your son is only one chromosone away from experiencing it firsthand.
I respectfully re-submit Post #91 for your perusal.
In all fairness, Hentor, the staff was moving her within a contained area, where not that much could have happened to her if she got away from them and they could get hold of her again fairly easily. The police were taking her outside, which is a much different proposition. It’s the same priniciple as us using standard leashes (or no leash for voice-controlled employee-owned animals) to move a dog from place to place in a clinic, but having an iron-clad rule that all dogs MUST be on a slipknot-style leash when taken outdoors. A dog getting loose in the clinic isn’t that big a deal–they can’t really hurt themselves and we can corral them and get hold of them in pretty short order because they really can’t go much of anywhere. A dog getting loose outside, however, is an absolutely enormous deal, because there’s plenty of room to run, and quite a lot of that room is populated by cars and other dangers. This kid has already shown that she’s somewhat unpredictable, so I can’t fault them at all for not taking that sort of risk.