Sometimes a Brat Is Just A Brat

On Wed, 04 May 2005 20:57:27 GMT, "R. Steve Walz"
wrote:

bizby40 wrote:

"Chookie" wrote in message
...
As the
kid wanders around the classroom, the teacher tells her vainly to "stop",
that
what she is doing is "not acceptable" (Do people really use words like
this to
5yos? What about "wrong"?).

I do. And I will also tell them that what they are doing is "not
appropriate" if that is the better description. I don't talk down to my
kids, or to kids in general. I may use a longer word and then define it for
them if they ask, or if they look confused, but I won't keep to single
syllable words as a general rule.

The fact of the matter is that even if the girl didn't know the word
"acceptable," she certainly knew the word "not," and the tone in which it
was said. You can't tell me that she didn't know that what she was doing
was wrong, or that she didn't know her teacher wanted her to stop.

Bizby
----------------------------
What YOU don't grasp is that some "deprived" children don't understand
the concept of "not acceptable", they just aren't used to being ordered
around by bigger kids all the time, nor need they be. If she was only
wandering around looking at stuff she may have had an intellectual
peak experience and was trying to expand it, figure it out. No child
should have glorified "doggy obedience training" inflicted on them as
a sorry excuse for upbringing or teaching!! Being made to march in
straight lines and remain motionless is an abomination to ANY human.
Steve

Looking at the classroom, the activities were hand on and she was
not just wandering around *looking* at things. She was deliberately
destroying things (and at 5, not 2, this is not appropriate).

She was not being made to march in straight lines or to remain
motionless, but she was asked to stop destroying things and hitting
people.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

On 4 May 2005 07:57:17 -0700, "Jonathan Levy"
wrote:

Nan wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/8t5eo

Kent is a reg in the childfree group, so I'd bet the author of that
article is probably CF as well.

He (syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.) has five children.

http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatur...67&bylineid=97

And this is relevant to this thread in what way?


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

On Wed, 04 May 2005 20:02:23 GMT, "Welches"
wrote:


"Kent" wrote in message
. ..
Don't be one of those parents who lets your kid get like this!

http://tinyurl.com/8t5eo


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

No she looks like a kid who needs a lot of love to me.
Debbie

Given the few facts in evidence from the articles and the videos
I would have to agree.

She looks like she needs positive attention instead of negative
attention.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

Nan wrote:
On 4 May 2005 19:00:40 -0700, wrote:

Realistically, that's the way it has to be for many people. They
don't
have the resources to make a back-up plan for something that seldom
happens. Perhaps the back-up plan is something like a relative or
neighbor who will watch a sick kid, perhaps for payment.

For many families, school is when there's some relief from the cost
of
daycare for a younger child. It does serve a daycare purpose, in
addition to its educational function.

Yabbut, even when you're paying for childcare so you can work you
still need to have backup in case your child is too ill to go to
daycare, or the dcp is too ill. Same holds true for school. It may
be 'free daycare', but there is still parental responsibility to plan
for contingencies.

Nan

True. And in this case, the mother said she would be there in about an
hour, if I understood it correctly. I have a hard time believing that
the school needed Police help in restraining a 5 y-o for an hour.

And from what little I saw of the video, they *were* touching the kid
-- at one point, the teacher lifted her down from a table. They just
weren't handling her effectively. When I read everyone praising the way
they handled the child, and saying it was exactly what they have been
taught to do -- my reaction was that they've evidently been taught to
do things that don't really work.

They say the child was trashing the place. Why did they let her? As
soon as she started acting up, they should have removed her from the
classroom into a neutral environment -- an empty room or even a corner
of the playground. I still don't understand why the teacher removed the
other kids from the class instead of Ja'eisha.

They could have just held her down until she settled. She might have
screamed and cried -- as she did when she was handcuffed -- but so
what?

The mother sounds very beleaguered. She has three kids under 5, a job
that she can't just drop, and problems with housing. It sounds as
though she needs some support. It's difficult to know why the kid is
acting out in this way, but possibly the stress at home has something
to do with it.

Rupa

On 4 May 2005 19:37:12 -0700, wrote:

True. And in this case, the mother said she would be there in about an
hour, if I understood it correctly. I have a hard time believing that
the school needed Police help in restraining a 5 y-o for an hour.

I'm going to go out on a limb and toss out the idea that it was felt
the police might "scare her straight". Not exactly effective, imo.

And from what little I saw of the video, they *were* touching the kid
-- at one point, the teacher lifted her down from a table. They just
weren't handling her effectively. When I read everyone praising the way
they handled the child, and saying it was exactly what they have been
taught to do -- my reaction was that they've evidently been taught to
do things that don't really work.

I was watching it and could see Jo (Supernanny) with that look she
gets when she's watching parents being ineffective with their kids.

They say the child was trashing the place. Why did they let her? As
soon as she started acting up, they should have removed her from the
classroom into a neutral environment -- an empty room or even a corner
of the playground. I still don't understand why the teacher removed the
other kids from the class instead of Ja'eisha.

Neither do I. It gave the child too much power over the situation.

They could have just held her down until she settled. She might have
screamed and cried -- as she did when she was handcuffed -- but so
what?

I would have, but I guess this school district chooses a hands off
approach. Clearly it did not work, and hopefully they'll rethink
their stance.

The mother sounds very beleaguered. She has three kids under 5, a job
that she can't just drop, and problems with housing. It sounds as
though she needs some support. It's difficult to know why the kid is
acting out in this way, but possibly the stress at home has something
to do with it.

Exactly. Hopefully she won't immerse herself in denial about her
circumstances and will get some help.

Nan

"toto" wrote in message

Link to the video clip.

http://www.sptimesphotos.com/video/office.html


that's so *retarded*. what is this world coming to?

the police are allowed to restrain her excessively and with force, but the
assistant principal couldn't even think of a way to stop feeding into her
misbehaving drama.. ...it appeared to me that this kid knew exactly what
she was doing.. ..she kept getting very consistent (and ineffective)
results.

I would've taken her into an *empty* room and explained to her that her
behaviour is unacceptable, and leave her to herself for several minutes if
she started attacking me.

It's what responsible adults (should) do when one is being abusive. Leave.

Of course, with kids you have to make sure that you're leaving them in a
safe environment, and only for a few minutes.

"shinypenny" wrote in message
oups.com...

I'm sure the mother has not done the most effective job raising this
child, and the child looks undeniably challenging as it is, for *any*
mother. If there is any kid with ADHD, it's that kid, don't you think?

Careful -- you're entering into Bill Frist territory. ;-)


P. Tierney

toto wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 11:54:01 GMT, Rosalie B.
wrote:

toto wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 03:31:29 GMT, Nan wrote:

It certainly does not seem that the child needed
to be handcuffed and arrested by police.

I don't understand this outrage over handcuffs. What's the big deal?

Handcuffs are unnecessary with a young child and they are scary
and add to the emotional trauma the child is already giving evidence
of, imo.

I don't think handcuffs would be any more scary than a big person
holding me down. I just am unable to see handcuffs as abusive. I
have had grandchildren who didn't like any restraint whatsoever by
anyone.

The sheriff once put my dad in jail (he would have been about 7) in
order to get him to tell on his playmates including I think his older
brother about some windows they broke. It didn't work.

Also I don't understand why the child's age has very much to do with
it. If a 5 year old shouldn't be handcuffed, how about a 10 year old?
From the POV of the restraint, what is the difference?.

The physical size of the child is one big difference. If an adult
cannot manage to restrain a child of this age without resorting to
police and handcuffs, it seems to me that they have not learned
much about handling children.

I have had trouble restraining my own children at a younger age than
that (see the giving medication thread), so I can perfectly well see
that a determined child can get the better of a less-determined and
bamboozled adult. I think though that your observations about them
not knowing how to handle children are undoubtedly correct.

It sounds to me as if an adult interpretation has been put on
handcuffs that is not really justified by just the actual implement
itself. Would Chinese handcuffs result in the same outrage? How
about a strait jacket?

Yes, these would certainly cause the same outrage with me.

I gather you think that these are more humane? I think that anya

No I don't think they are more humane - just that they don't have the
some implications for an adult that handcuffs do.

of this is terrifying to a young child and should never be used.

I don't think this child was THAT young. She wasn't three, she was in
school. Especially if she has a dad that has been in prison, she
should be more savvy than that. Handcuffs aren't going to hurt her.

I can understand *needing* to use such devices with a big
strong person who is unable to be restrained in any other way,
but I can't see that it is effective or necessary in the case of
a child.


I also understood (without reading the article - sorry Dorothy) that
the mom told the school they were not to ever touch the child. That
sounds as if they had their hand tied (no pun intended) as to what the
school was able to do. If they can't touch her, what other option did
they have?

I did not see anything about the mom telling the school they were not
to touch the child, though that is possible. However, the teachers

That was on several TV reports of the incident that I heard.

were trained in this technique where they do not touch the child by
some recent training session. I thought it was highly ineffective in
terms of stopping the behavior. Aside from that telling a child *no,
that's not acceptable* without being able to back it up with any
action restraining the child from being able to take the action is
just weird. You don't need to be a genius to see that to the child
this was a game and a way to get attention even if the attention was
negative.

Quite true. That's why I think the handcuffs were a good solution to
the problem. They couldn't touch the child and she was playing them
like a violin. Getting attention by being as awful as she could be.
And they didn't know how to deal with it. Maybe the mom intimidated
them. So handcuffs were one way to keep her from hurting herself or
others - kind of a semi-natural consequence instead of having to go to
the naughty corner.

If the child had acted like this before (and I understood that she
had), they should have had some backup plan also.

Yes they should have. My suggestion (since they were not allowed
to touch her at all) would be to have a room where there was nothing
she could harm and nothing that could harm her. The teacher could
then stay with her and either ignore her or talk with her depending
upon her attitude and what she did in that room.

That would have been preferable if there was such a place. But in
most schools, there is unlikely to be such a place. They just don't
have space to have a bare room with nothing in it.

Still even that might be seen as abusive by the parent and lawsuits
are made on less.

I still think a restraint hold is the better idea *and* telling the
child positive things about herself while using the hold often
helps. Teaching such a child to breathe anger out sometimes
helps too, but you have to get down on their level and make
eye contact and your tone has to be one that actually carries
love for the child despite her actions. (Hard for a stressed out
teacher to do).

Agreed. However, the principal was ineffective in her approach. When
I worked at the women's shelter, a child that behaved like that would
have been restrained by staff in what we called a "basket hold". It
was very effective in getting the child to calm down.

I agree and I wondered about that myself, but.... I would bet that
the staff was not trained in this kind of technique and/or that there
is some school rule or legal problem with using it on a regular
ed student in a regular kindergarten classroom.

I have used that hold on children in a daycare setting and it
*is* much more effective and usually the children calm down
and want to sit on their own and either talk it out or at least
stop the mayhem. The problem is that if you are not properly
trained on it, you can hurt a child when you attempt it and
that may put the school in line for a lawsuit too. My suspicion
is that the training educators were put through emphasized
not touching the child. I also will say that with the fact that
this incident and others in Pinellas County are being touted
as racism since more black children are put in this situation
than white children, the other problem involved would be having
a white teacher restrain a black child. I would bet their would
be an outcry against any teacher who did that hold with a
child of another race. It can get pretty complicated.

Unfortunately, the mother apparently would not come to get
the child until she got off work so the school personel were
in a situation where they would have had to have a principal
or teacher or aide staying with her and monitoring her until
that time.

I'll play devil's advocate and say I wouldn't want to be in the
position of having to monitor the child for possibly an entire day
just because the mother couldn't be bothered to come get her. I
wouldn't have called the police, but I may have referred the
situation to DFS or a similar agency.

I am not sure that dcfs will come and pick a child up from school
whose mother *is* coming to get her at 3:15 pm which is what
the tape said the mom was doing.

I would not necessarily want to be in that situation as an emergency
contact, but that *is* an option if the mother cannot come - usually
the contacts are other relatives who are available during the day,
though neighbors are also used on occasion.

I wonder about the emergency contacts and why they could
not retrieve the child. It seems that she needed to be picked
up at the earliest time possible and when mom is not available,
every school I ever worked in had other people to call as
backup to pick her up.

Link to a more detailed story about the incident itself he
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/22/So...olice_ha.shtml

Archived article he
http://snipurl.com/endu

grandma Rosalie

grandma Rosalie

In article ,
"electroscopillan" wrote:

"toto" wrote in message

Link to the video clip.

http://www.sptimesphotos.com/video/office.html


that's so *retarded*. what is this world coming to?

the police are allowed to restrain her excessively and with force, but the
assistant principal couldn't even think of a way to stop feeding into her
misbehaving drama.. ...it appeared to me that this kid knew exactly what
she was doing.. ..she kept getting very consistent (and ineffective)
results.

I would've taken her into an *empty* room and explained to her that her
behaviour is unacceptable, and leave her to herself for several minutes if
she started attacking me.

How many schools do you know that have empty rooms anywhere? Around
here, most have classes happening in "portable" rooms (trailers) because
there isn't enough classroom space to go around.


It's what responsible adults (should) do when one is being abusive. Leave.

Of course, with kids you have to make sure that you're leaving them in a
safe environment, and only for a few minutes.



--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Rosalie B. wrote:
toto wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 11:54:01 GMT, Rosalie B.
wrote:

toto wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 03:31:29 GMT, Nan wrote:

It certainly does not seem that the child needed
to be handcuffed and arrested by police.

I don't understand this outrage over handcuffs. What's the big
deal?

Handcuffs are unnecessary with a young child and they are scary
and add to the emotional trauma the child is already giving evidence
of, imo.

I don't think handcuffs would be any more scary than a big person
holding me down. I just am unable to see handcuffs as abusive. I
have had grandchildren who didn't like any restraint whatsoever by
anyone.

I think the association with handcuffs is that the person being
arrested is criminal. I imagine any kid who watches TV would make the
same association.

Rupa