Five year old handcuffed.

I can promise you that, if this kid behaves like this at kindergarten, he gets away with the same behavior at home.

 

You don't handcuff 5 yr olds and send them to mental hopsitals. Plus theres the fact you have to have parental approval or a court order for any type of anything medical on a child. They had no leagal right for that. And denying the family or their authorized agent(babysitter) to remove the child, no I don't think so.

 

Amen CARPRO. It all starts in the home. I think the handcuffs were a bit too much but the paddle to the seat of education would have been good. If not corrected now he will be coming to class with a 9mm in 4 years.

 

Therein lies the problem.

Teachers and administrators no longer have the power and the authority to deal with unruly children.

The reason? Parents.

Right or wrong,and as ridiculous as it may sound, schools are increasingly turning to law enforcement agencies to deal with the worst cases of children misbehaving.

 

A great start to solving most school problems would be to eliminate the NEA, and get the feds OUT of the classroom; give control back to local communities!!!!!

This is just one of many areas that is usurped by the feds from the states.

 

There is a point that I agree with this.

 

The school, or anyone else has no medical authority over children.

 

5 years is young. I dealt with an 8 year old who was obviously no good and 10 years later he was robbing gas stations. He cam from a family of no goods.

 

That's a side issue and doesn't really address the problem.

Additionally , I before law enforcement authorities do have medical authority over someone in custody, regardless of age.

 

I'm going to attempt a look at this situation differently...

The authority over the child is the parent.
(No absolute inferrance over the behavior of the child in the parents presence can be made by the behavior of the child away from the parents: Many times a child which is very restricted and highly disciplined at home may be passive in the parents' presence.... but break free when presented with less restrictive environment whereby he releases his inhibitions.)

The school and all other authorities over the child, have their authority by a 'contract' of understanding which may involve involve certain legal mandates (like a child of school age must attend school), but, if correctly observed, these have only a temporary authority of duration when the child is placed in their custodial power, and it reverts back to and answers to the parents for the treatment of the child while in their care. Properly understood, the authority of the parents is never completely relinquished, (unless custodial rights are removed) and therefore, all other authorities over a child are by parental temporary trust and 'delegation'. If agreement cannot be reached with cooperation of the parents, then regardless of how lawfully necessary the 'service' might be..... the provider (a public or private school or church) cannot deliver their service and the parent must find it elsewhere.

If a child is so unruly as to not be responsive to the care or discipline of another authority(i.e. the school or the church child care), the parents should be consulted and a formal plan should be presented to the parents: Such plan should include the observations of the behavior problems (to include, any environmental, social, physical, emotional stimulus which was observable immediately prior to problem behavior---to include any complaint, questions, or statements of the child prior to outburst), diary of incidence and frequency if not a first time event, attempted corrective action already tried and the degree of resolution or partial resolution at each time of occurrence, and a possible consideration of useful disciplinary tools to try in the future.

Teachers and school administrators are trained in how to be 'professional ' in this sense and could insist upon a meeting with the parents to present this information. Such a meeting should take into consideration whether this is a first time meeting or if parents have met before to discuss the child's behavior. In any case, a formal 'contract' can be drawn up between the teacher and school's representative and the parent as to what WILL BE DONE, in the event the behavior continues, and the parent encouraged to exercise their authority in the home to instruct the child accordingly to control the behavior. If corporal punishment is to be considered.... present it to the parents and get their agreement. If the parent cannot suggest an approach which works for them, or agree to whatever tools are available to other caretakers when place in responsibility of the temporary care of their children....then the parents should be informed that THEY have the authority and the responsibility of their children which cannot be abandoned temporarily or permanently to any other authority....nor does it require any other authority to assume responsibility, even temporarily, if the parent refuses to cooperate in the respect and the discipline necessary to the welfare and care of their child, especially when it involves the care and welfare of other children.

The police and handcuffs seem excessive. I wonder if the parents had previous notice or consults with the school.... and to what extent were these a matter of informing them vs connecting with them. I'm particularly distrustful of psychiatry, psychology, and social workers getting involved in diagnosing and treating...particularly with mind altering drugs, any person, especially beneath the age of adult hood.

Diagnosis, whether justified by behavior or mental disposition at such an early age have a way of stigmatizing and sterotyping a child who has yet to form his complete personality and complete his physical, (spiritual,) and emotional developement. The advent of psychotrophic drugs is a god-send for adults who have complete splits from reality and are delusional or hallucinate. But ALL drugs given for psychological disorders are mind-or emotionally altering drugs, and may contribute to reality disconnect, ambivalence, apathy, confusion, or agitation due to inability to process or to utilize previously learned processes.

 

Still a side issue.

The immediate problem was to get an unruly unresponsive child under control.


Teachers and administrators no longer have the power and the authority to deal with unruly children.

The reason? Parents.

Right or wrong,and as ridiculous as it may sound, schools are increasingly turning to law enforcement agencies to deal with the worst cases of children misbehaving.

Schools have other children under their tutelege that have a right to a controlled peaceful environment under which to learn.

 

I see your point and see validity in it:

However, having worked in a mental rehab hospital for 20+years, and seeing out of control behavior in people of age range from 19yr-80's, with the average stay of 3 months, the mean age more like 35-55yr, in a 100 bed co-ed facility divided into 2 major units and an acute and stabilization unit of about 20 beds..... I saw many kinds of control used.

However, the patients (we called them 'residents' or at one time 'clients') were actually more protected by law than the staff. Any use of restraint, and that was several choices available, required careful documentation, with the oversight of several departments including medical, nursing, psychology, social work, and ultimately medical records review. Various forms of restraints included:

• close observation with 15 min checks by staff and limitation to the unit.
• one to one observation with a staff member attending the person at all times.
• seclusion to a room with mattress and frequent staff observation-patient dressed only in scrubs, food delivered to room on styrofoam with only plastic spoons to eat with.
• chemical restraint, which was any medication which was purposely administered to reduce agitation, restore calm, or promote slumber.
• padded arm and leg restraints, ours were leather, with patient confined to bed with rails low on the sides to which restraints were secured...... under constant staff observation, and scheduled times for loosening one limb at a time to exercise and return it to the secured rail.
• controlled non-aggressive physical intervention by staff; in this each attending staff had a specific focus of initiation and control.... and one staff member was designated to be the spokesperson to speak to the patient, offer choices and set limits, and direct staff when verbal intervention was ineffective.

If a patient was especially threatening, i.e. had a weapon, verbal threat to kill, exceptionally strong by virtue of physique and physical fitness or psychotic strength, we would call the police and have them on standby during our physical intervention: They were not allowed to interfer unless a threat of danger to staff or other residents actually presented.... and they could only handcuff the patient and help escort the patient to a restraining room or seclusion, where the patient would remain until a state of calm or self control and return to the general patient population. Any patient who thought he or another had been abused, any friend or family member who witnessed or suspected abuse, and any staff member who observed what they perceived was abuse, could report abuse on a toll free line from any phone in the facility which included several located in remote areas and always available to the residents for personal and private calls. Abuse investigation was virtually immediate from outside sources upon any one call alleging such and the person or person suspected or accused of abuse were considered 'guilty' if there was no way to prove otherwise or the patient, themself, denied the charges.

Now, in all of this, it seems that patients in a mental hospital are treated more humanely than this child was. The school has a right to exercise justice in its use of authority. They should have immediately called the parents and gotten them involved. By ommission of this they undermined the authority of the parents: with the intervention choosen by the police, they overruled the authority of the parents right to KNOW and participate in agreement or endorsement of their authority.

 

Once the school had the kid under control, I agree the parents should have been called before the child was transported to the hospital.

Since he was in the custody of a law enforcement agency, that in no way implies that I believe they had to be called before transporting.

 

No it's not a side issue, since it's one of the main items in this story, right after the hand cuffing. So really all the goverment has to do to take authority over the medical issues with your child is handcuff them.

 

you gotta watch out for those 5 yr olds, their desperate dangerous criminals,

 

That's right. You wear out the paddle on their hineys.

 

We have all these lables now days that excuse children. He's ADD. I've even heard of them saying that a child can be diagnosed as being bi-polar (another overused diagnosis to excuse bad choices) Actually, in many cases it gives mom and dad an excuse for their terrible parenting skills. I majority of discipline problems in the schools are not the school's fault. It starts at home.

 

Correct. Making it a side issue.

The main issue is an unruly child and what had to be done to subdue him.