Police Handcuffed 5yrold Girl

Phoenix32890 wrote:

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Yeah - violence is the best way to teach kids not to be violent....

dlowan- I think that the teacher was between a rock and a hard place. Although the child apparently had torn up the room, there was little that the teacher could do to restrain her. Apparently, the child was not responding to the teacher's ministrations, and continued messing the place up, and hitting. What else could have been done?

The mother had been called, but she was at work, and could not leave. It looks like there was no father in the picture who could have been alerted to the problem.

Many people appear to be horrified that this little child was put in handcuffs. What would you all have done, if YOU were the teacher, and/or the police?

Wasn't talking about the teacher - I was talking about Material Girl's demand for a spanking.

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Giving the girl back the jelly beans might have defused the situation.

The school, parents, whoever else is involved, could have met later to discuss what is going on - determine if the school was the appropriate setting for the child. Perhaps the mother needs parenting training - perhaps they both need some sort of therapy - perhaps the teachers need better training - definitely the police need better training.

(and anyone who thinks I'd now consider an A2K get-together in Florida is inhaling)

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squinney wrote

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Nice, au. So, at five I suppose there's no hope of changing this child's life for the better? Just, put her in a cage?

What does putting her in a cage to restrain her have to do with changing the child's life for the better?
What would you have done? I would also add that changing this child's life for the better is neither the schools, teachers, or the police officers problem but that of the parent.
In addition no matter what had been done to restrain her would have ended in controversy and the inevitable law suit. Imagine the vilification of the school and police if there had been no video to show the distructive behavior of the child.

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Quote:

(and anyone who thinks I'd now consider an A2K get-together in Florida is inhaling)

ehBeth- Most folks in Florida are quite normal. The problem is, that the weird ones are so blatantly abnormal!

(It must be the humidity!)

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Back in 1986 /87, we adopted a 5 1/2 year old mentally-challenged girl. She had all sorts of temper tantrums. Without going into a lot of details right now (I'm working on a detailed post on this adoption), the technique we were taught by Social Services (this is in BC) was to wrap a blanket around her when she was having one of her fits. That way, she could not hurt herself or others around her.

Last year, our now adult (22) adopted daughter was having an extreme outburst in her caregiver's private home. She had caused damage and hit at the caregiver. The police had to be called.

First of all, they didn't really want to deal with her, but when she wouldn't calm down, 2 policeman each took an arm and took her to our local hospital. She then was forcibly given a sedative. Apparently, this is protocol for handling mentally-challenged individuals.

The caregiver has been told that if they have to be called out again, she would be taken for an evaluation at a psychiatric institution where she would stay for some time.

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Reyn- Wrapping a person in a blanket while she is having a tantrum sounds like a workable technique, but could you imagine what would have happened if the teacher had done that? The mother probably would have filed a lawsuit saying that the teacher was trying to smother her child. And what about the safety of the teacher, and the other kids?

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Reyn--

Thank you for that dose of reality to this situation.

Things are seldom as cut and dried as they may seem.

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That video was horrifying.

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Lash wrote:

Phoenix--

Squinney-- At least you tried, but you are being incredibly unrealistic. Teachers aren't gods. She had other children she was responsible for--you can't say to hell with them and psychoanalyze one child who is currently punching you and poses a danger to herself and other children.

You can have a oretty good knowledge of a student, and have a good rapport with them, and be baffled at weird behavior like this. Trying to pin fault on the teacher in this situation is really stretching.

It's late enough in the year that this should have been nipped before it got to this point. I'm not being unrealistic, nor am I asking teachers to be gods or psychotherapists. I thought I made it clear that intervention should have taken place WAY before it got to this point. Teachers, administrators and school counselors are supposed to be trained to deal with children. Evidently, none of the above in this childs school did their homework. It wasn't a sudden, out of the blue weird reaction to jelly beans.

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Thank you Reyn. I look forward to reading your post.

Amazing, isn't it, that mental health issues are so often dealt with on a police level? All too often something really bad has to happen before a child, or anyone else for that matter, is able to get help.

I don't know if that is the case in this situation.

I do know that despite my health insurance I am unable to get Mo the counseling he needs. Apparently, kids don't have mental health issues.

<sigh>

I also find it amazing that the mother's employer wouldn't let her leave before her shift was over at 3:00. As an employer I've dealt with the family crisises of my staff from time to time -- if you value your staff you have to value the things they value -- even when it screws up your own day.

I wonder who she works for.

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Boomer - I was wondering about the girl's mother as well. What's her job? Was it worth it to keep her job even if it meant that her kid got handcuffed? Did she know that if she didn't go to her child that her child would be handcuffed? Was there no one else who could have gone?

I know that people can have very complicated lives and that many parents have no help.

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au1929 wrote:

squinney wrote

Quote:
Nice, au. So, at five I suppose there's no hope of changing this child's life for the better? Just, put her in a cage?

What does putting her in a cage to restrain her have to do with changing the child's life for the better?
What would you have done? I would also add that changing this child's life for the better is neither the schools, teachers, or the police officers problem but that of the parent. In addition no matter what had been done to restrain her would have ended in controversy and the inevitable law suit. Imagine the vilification of the school and police if there had been no video to show the distructive behavior of the child.

Wow! Guess it doesn't take a village afterall. That should make for an interesting society.

I will say that we do not know the details of what has taken place during previous tantrums. We don't know if the parent was told about IEP's and alternative settings. We don't know if the parent was instructed on services available to assist her with this child, or whether or not she refused all of the above info.

If she had been told and refused, it was the schools (vounselors) responsibility to call social services. I would imagine charges of neglect would have forced better care for this child. They wouldn't have to take the child away from the mother. Social Services could force her to attend parenting classes and "highly suggest" working with the school on an IEP.

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What is an IEP? (In my background, it means immunoelectrophoresis..)

I see Squinney's points about this not being a one sugar-burst situation, and that positive methods to induce the child away from tantrum behavior, and positive ways to handle it when it did occur, needed to be worked out much earlier. Easy for me to say, though, from this distance.

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Individual Education Plan. Backbone of special education.

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I think it was a bad idea to be using jelly beans for counting (if that's what was happening).

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Back when it was OK to spank 'em, they mostly didn't carry on in such fashion. There might be a correlation. I recall havin' had the "Board of Education" applied to my posterior a few times.

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There needs to be discipline, there needs to be consistency, but there doesn't need to be spanking.

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I do not have any expertise in this field so I don't know what the school staff should have done. It seems thoguh that someone on the staff could have been called in toi try to calm the girl before calling the police.

The police had absolutely no reason to handcuff her. I expected to see her try to bite or kick the officers to warrant this extreme action. The girl was calmly sitting in the chair when the police arrived.

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It was planned. All of it. I can see why the mother said that they set her baby up. They had the video camera at the ready. The police were all on the same page before they walked in.

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From the video I gathered that she sat down IMMEDIATELY when she saw the police through the glass. She saw them coming and knew she had to straighten up at that point.

Did I hear one of the officers, on entering the room, say "Do you remember who I am?" and then something about the mother having given prior permission to cuff her?

Did I hear that right?

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Police Handcuffed 5yrold Girl

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