Don't be one of those parents who lets your kid get like this!

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Sometimes A Brat Is Just A Brat Who Needs A Spank
May 3, 2005
By LOENARD PITTS

Put the handcuffs aside. We'll get back to them in a minute.

Frankly, there's something else on that video that troubles me almost
as much. And if you're saying to yourself, "What video?" well ...
welcome home. How are things in the rainforest?

Here in the States, everybody's talking about a much-televised video -
shot in March but made public last week - of a 5-year-old in St.
Petersburg, Fla., being taken into custody by police officers after
throwing a tantrum at school. Ja'eisha Scott cries out as her arms are
pinioned behind her.

As I said, we'll get to that. For now, let's talk about what the
half-hour video shows in the moments before police arrive. I've seen
temper tantrums before - I've got five kids - but this one was
different. Not because the child seemed out of control but, rather,
because she seemed so very much in control.

This wasn't stomping and shouting and throwing a fit. This was walking
over to a shelf and sweeping items off it. Walking to a wall and
snatching photos down. Walking across the room to pick things up and
break them. Walking back and forth, in no apparent hurry, methodically
wrecking the room with the calm deliberateness of someone who knows you
can't do a thing to stop her. And then punching at the hapless
administrator who kept telling her this behavior was "unacceptable."

Beg pardon, but am I the only benighted member of the old school who
wanted to spank that child's backside?

Not "beat." Not "abuse." But spank? Definitely.

Granted, I don't know anything about this girl. Maybe she has emotional
problems. Maybe she's been mistreated. Maybe there are mitigating
factors. In which case, I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong.

But assuming I'm not, assuming Ja'eisha is what she appears - a brat in
a snit - you have to ask yourself if anybody has ever laid down the law
to her, said no and made it stick, socialized her. It's a job, I hasten
to add, that begins not with schools, but with parents.

Of course, no one seems to be doing the job these days, so tremulous
are we about bruising fragile self-esteem. Small wonder we wind up in a
place where adults are helpless before the furies of children.

What happened in St. Pete is but the most widely publicized episode in
what seems a mini-epidemic. Last year, a kindergartner in St. Louis was
handcuffed for disruptive behavior. Last week, a 7-year-old in
Bethlehem, W.Va., wound up wearing jailhouse bracelets for much the
same reason.

Can it be just coincidence that we're also seeing a not-so-mini
epidemic of parents defending and rationalizing the misbehavior of
their little terrors? I'm thinking of the parents in Kansas who
harassed a teacher for flunking kids who cheated on a project. Of the
mother in Greater Chicago who dismissed her daughter's part in a mob
assault as something that just "got out of hand." Of the mother in New
Orleans who blamed the school - school with security guards and metal
detectors - after her son and another boy shot each other.

And I'm thinking of Ja'eisha's mother, Inga Akins, saying on television
that her daughter's misbehavior stemmed from the fact that she doesn't
get along with "Miss D" - presumably assistant principal Nicole
Dibenedetto, seen in the video deflecting the child's punches. Beg
pardon again, but ... who cares? How does the fact that a 5-year-old
doesn't like somebody justify her behaving like a hellion?

Akins has a lawyer and he's talking lawsuit. Fine. The police
overreacted. You don't handcuff 5-year-olds. But you shouldn't feel
that you have to.

So I hope mom doesn't do what we too often do when our kids misbehave
these days: Make it not their fault. Tell them they are victims. Spare
them the burden of onus.

I hope that between media interviews, Akins is getting her child
straight. Otherwise, I can promise you one thing:

Someday, you'll see Ja'eisha in handcuffs again.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a syndicated columnist in Washington.