6 year old arrested at school. Florida, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not surprised to see this is a charter school. I wonder if this is a calculated move to arrest students with discipline problems so the parents move them back to their neighborhood school. Meanwhile as the discipline problems filter back to the neighborhood school, parents looking for a school climate without all those disruptive kids will move their kids to the charter school. Once this blows over the charter school isn't going to have regrets about this incident. Someone needs to reel in the charter school practice of getting rid of difficult students.

You are calling this 6 year old child a "discipline problem" after one meltdown and after she kicked one staff member one time?

Well many of us have managed to raise children who don’t kick people ever...especially not teachers at school...so...

...so... she deserved to be arrested?

No, I am saying she IS objectively a discipline problem. You seem to object to that since you put it in quotes.

She's an innocent 6 year old girl. Maybe it's a little early to be labeling her? What kind of help was she getting for her self control issues?

None apparently. It’s a “sleep disorder” according to her grandma who appears to be raising her.

Is that why her biological parents abandoned her? I would assume the kid was wildly out of control for the officer to resort to handcuffing her. Would you have preferred they shot her with a tranquilizer dart?

When the officer beat his son, do you also assume it was because his son was wildly out of control? Did his son have it coming also?

I guess that’s sort of a conundrum. When a kid behaves so badly that his police officer father must beat him, do you blame the parents for poor parenting then for raising a wild child, or do you commend the police officer for neutralizing a dangerous child suspect?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only kicked someone. Gosh... that’s good to hear?

Seriously, WTF? We now expect our teachers to put up with physical abuse from their students? Come on. Let the teachers teach. This kid needs some sort of serious intervention and if her parent/guardian isn't providing it then maybe it needs to be court ordered.

So you think a kindergartner or first grader kicking someone means they should be arrested. I find that appalling.

Once a child was bothering my DD in first grade so she bit her. I guess we should have brought back the electric chair.

It IS appalling. Those of you excusing handcuffing and treating a SIX year old like this officer did are just disgusting people.

A PP here. Not excusing it. But to act like a school aged child kicking an adult is normal is false and not helpful.

Didn't dude get fired?

Yes. And the state attorney general basically said what he did was wrong and outrageous. Yet people keep trying to justify his actions and blame the little girl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And an 8 year old in the same week.

This is sickening and absolutely a racial thing. School to Prison Pipeline right here.

I live in Orlando and it's very much in the news in a WTAF sort of way, so it's not like everyone down here is "what, what's the problem." The officer was suspended and the prosecutor refused to do jack about it, so the "system" is at least working there. Despite the fact that the system never should have been invoked.

The officer is black.

DP but officers of every color feel much freer to arrest and mistreat black children than white. A racial thing doesn't necessarily mean personal animus - most racism is societal. Society will bring the hammer down on a cop that arrests a little white girl, regardless of context. Meanwhile society, as expressed by DCUM, will go give us countless logical contortions about the vicious kicking beast that had to be controlled when the story is about a black girl.

Wow, that is an iron clad excuse of all excuses if you ask me. Well done!

I'm sorry you don't understand structural racism. There are approximately infinity studies on the topic showing that black people get arrested for things white people get warnings for; that black children's misbehavior is criminalized while white children get timeouts. Reality isn't usually seen as an "excuse," but I guess if you really don't want reality acknowledged you might be a tad miffed.

O.k. so the answer is to allow a little girl suffering from behavioral issues caused by sleep apnea to continue to kick the crap out of her teacher, disrupt her classroom and defy authority? You know that's crazy, right?

She didn't kick her teacher, she kicked a staffer in the principal's office. And even then, she didn't "kick the crap out of" anyone, she kicked someone once, and only after they grabbed her arms. But keep up the "vicious kicking beast" narrative. It's a great look. You're not on the wrong side of this narrative at all, with all your made up facts and demands for complete obeisance from first graders.

You are saying that the school staff mishandled the situation? If they had handled it correctly a resource officer would not have been brought in?

Believe it or not, I do find the idea of a 6 year old being arrested pretty appalling. But I also find it hard to believe that a situation with a 6 year old ever escalated to this level in the first place. I have personally never witnessed anything remotely like this and I tend to think that this was a highly unusual situation.

Yes, I am saying that the school staff mishandled the situation. The girl was having a tantrum but no one was hit or kicked until she was grabbed by a staffer. That means it was the school employee who escalated this from a tantrum to physical contact. This school had TWO different 6 year olds arrested in the same day in separate incidents, both arrests resulted in an apology from the Chief of Police and a chastisement from the State Attorney for participating in the school-to-prison pipeline. Nothing about that says "gee this school probably handled everything correctly!"

So I turn, again, to your incredulous "she must have deserved it, let me make some stuff up" positioning here. There's nothing to defend here, yet you can't seem to stop defending it. I notice you didn't even address the fact you fabricated facts to support your credulous authority uber alles nonsense. What is your end game, exactly? It's not getting to the bottom of the situation or you wouldn't be making stuff up.

In my experience the staff at the schools really care about the kids and handle them (especially the little ones) with great kindness and compassion. That is my experience with my own children and that is my experience as a parent volunteer over the years. I have student taught middle school but I have never been a teacher, myself - took a different path.

I don't think that we have all of the details as to what happened in this situation. Most of what we're getting is coming from the child's very upset parent/guardian who is relaying what she was told because she wasn't there herself.

I am not fabricating facts at all, maybe you know things that I don't. All I can say is that it would be highly unusual for so many elementary school staff members to have such a hard time dealing with a typical childhood meltdown.

This is a lie. We have also heard from the Chief of Police and the State Attorney. Nevertheless, you persist in assuming that the procedures were followed. You also said she "kicked the crap out of her teacher." That didn't happen and wasn't reported anywhere. You apparently haven't even read coverage of what happened, just a headline or two, and come on here FABRICATING a narrative that paints the girl as a monster and all the adults as reasonable. Your experience as a parent volunteer is less than meaningless. You are embarrassing yourself.

Clearly the only reasonable people in this situation were the parent/guardian and this child. That is why the resource officer got fired. The school staff is lucky to still have their jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only kicked someone. Gosh... that’s good to hear?

Seriously, WTF? We now expect our teachers to put up with physical abuse from their students? Come on. Let the teachers teach. This kid needs some sort of serious intervention and if her parent/guardian isn't providing it then maybe it needs to be court ordered.

So you think a kindergartner or first grader kicking someone means they should be arrested. I find that appalling.

Once a child was bothering my DD in first grade so she bit her. I guess we should have brought back the electric chair.

It IS appalling. Those of you excusing handcuffing and treating a SIX year old like this officer did are just disgusting people.

A PP here. Not excusing it. But to act like a school aged child kicking an adult is normal is false and not helpful.

Didn't dude get fired?

Yes. And the state attorney general basically said what he did was wrong and outrageous. Yet people keep trying to justify his actions and blame the little girl.

He got fired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And an 8 year old in the same week.

This is sickening and absolutely a racial thing. School to Prison Pipeline right here.

I live in Orlando and it's very much in the news in a WTAF sort of way, so it's not like everyone down here is "what, what's the problem." The officer was suspended and the prosecutor refused to do jack about it, so the "system" is at least working there. Despite the fact that the system never should have been invoked.

The officer is black.

DP but officers of every color feel much freer to arrest and mistreat black children than white. A racial thing doesn't necessarily mean personal animus - most racism is societal. Society will bring the hammer down on a cop that arrests a little white girl, regardless of context. Meanwhile society, as expressed by DCUM, will go give us countless logical contortions about the vicious kicking beast that had to be controlled when the story is about a black girl.

Wow, that is an iron clad excuse of all excuses if you ask me. Well done!

I'm sorry you don't understand structural racism. There are approximately infinity studies on the topic showing that black people get arrested for things white people get warnings for; that black children's misbehavior is criminalized while white children get timeouts. Reality isn't usually seen as an "excuse," but I guess if you really don't want reality acknowledged you might be a tad miffed.

O.k. so the answer is to allow a little girl suffering from behavioral issues caused by sleep apnea to continue to kick the crap out of her teacher, disrupt her classroom and defy authority? You know that's crazy, right?

She didn't kick her teacher, she kicked a staffer in the principal's office. And even then, she didn't "kick the crap out of" anyone, she kicked someone once, and only after they grabbed her arms. But keep up the "vicious kicking beast" narrative. It's a great look. You're not on the wrong side of this narrative at all, with all your made up facts and demands for complete obeisance from first graders.

You are saying that the school staff mishandled the situation? If they had handled it correctly a resource officer would not have been brought in?

Believe it or not, I do find the idea of a 6 year old being arrested pretty appalling. But I also find it hard to believe that a situation with a 6 year old ever escalated to this level in the first place. I have personally never witnessed anything remotely like this and I tend to think that this was a highly unusual situation.

Yes, I am saying that the school staff mishandled the situation. The girl was having a tantrum but no one was hit or kicked until she was grabbed by a staffer. That means it was the school employee who escalated this from a tantrum to physical contact. This school had TWO different 6 year olds arrested in the same day in separate incidents, both arrests resulted in an apology from the Chief of Police and a chastisement from the State Attorney for participating in the school-to-prison pipeline. Nothing about that says "gee this school probably handled everything correctly!"

So I turn, again, to your incredulous "she must have deserved it, let me make some stuff up" positioning here. There's nothing to defend here, yet you can't seem to stop defending it. I notice you didn't even address the fact you fabricated facts to support your credulous authority uber alles nonsense. What is your end game, exactly? It's not getting to the bottom of the situation or you wouldn't be making stuff up.

In my experience the staff at the schools really care about the kids and handle them (especially the little ones) with great kindness and compassion. That is my experience with my own children and that is my experience as a parent volunteer over the years. I have student taught middle school but I have never been a teacher, myself - took a different path.

I don't think that we have all of the details as to what happened in this situation. Most of what we're getting is coming from the child's very upset parent/guardian who is relaying what she was told because she wasn't there herself.

I am not fabricating facts at all, maybe you know things that I don't. All I can say is that it would be highly unusual for so many elementary school staff members to have such a hard time dealing with a typical childhood meltdown.

This is a lie. We have also heard from the Chief of Police and the State Attorney. Nevertheless, you persist in assuming that the procedures were followed. You also said she "kicked the crap out of her teacher." That didn't happen and wasn't reported anywhere. You apparently haven't even read coverage of what happened, just a headline or two, and come on here FABRICATING a narrative that paints the girl as a monster and all the adults as reasonable. Your experience as a parent volunteer is less than meaningless. You are embarrassing yourself.

Clearly the only reasonable people in this situation were the parent/guardian and this child. That is why the resource officer got fired. The school staff is lucky to still have their jobs.

The child doesn't even have to be reasonable. She's 6, FFS. She was having a tantrum. It's bad behavior, and bad behavior is expected and developmentally appropriate for little kids. Everyone else, from the staffer who turned it into a physical altercation to the disgraced cop, and especially the jerks in this thread insisting that this is all totally fine and must be called for somehow, is NUTS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And an 8 year old in the same week.

This is sickening and absolutely a racial thing. School to Prison Pipeline right here.

I live in Orlando and it's very much in the news in a WTAF sort of way, so it's not like everyone down here is "what, what's the problem." The officer was suspended and the prosecutor refused to do jack about it, so the "system" is at least working there. Despite the fact that the system never should have been invoked.

The officer is black.

DP but officers of every color feel much freer to arrest and mistreat black children than white. A racial thing doesn't necessarily mean personal animus - most racism is societal. Society will bring the hammer down on a cop that arrests a little white girl, regardless of context. Meanwhile society, as expressed by DCUM, will go give us countless logical contortions about the vicious kicking beast that had to be controlled when the story is about a black girl.

Wow, that is an iron clad excuse of all excuses if you ask me. Well done!

I'm sorry you don't understand structural racism. There are approximately infinity studies on the topic showing that black people get arrested for things white people get warnings for; that black children's misbehavior is criminalized while white children get timeouts. Reality isn't usually seen as an "excuse," but I guess if you really don't want reality acknowledged you might be a tad miffed.

O.k. so the answer is to allow a little girl suffering from behavioral issues caused by sleep apnea to continue to kick the crap out of her teacher, disrupt her classroom and defy authority? You know that's crazy, right?

She didn't kick her teacher, she kicked a staffer in the principal's office. And even then, she didn't "kick the crap out of" anyone, she kicked someone once, and only after they grabbed her arms. But keep up the "vicious kicking beast" narrative. It's a great look. You're not on the wrong side of this narrative at all, with all your made up facts and demands for complete obeisance from first graders.

You are saying that the school staff mishandled the situation? If they had handled it correctly a resource officer would not have been brought in?

Believe it or not, I do find the idea of a 6 year old being arrested pretty appalling. But I also find it hard to believe that a situation with a 6 year old ever escalated to this level in the first place. I have personally never witnessed anything remotely like this and I tend to think that this was a highly unusual situation.

Yes, I am saying that the school staff mishandled the situation. The girl was having a tantrum but no one was hit or kicked until she was grabbed by a staffer. That means it was the school employee who escalated this from a tantrum to physical contact. This school had TWO different 6 year olds arrested in the same day in separate incidents, both arrests resulted in an apology from the Chief of Police and a chastisement from the State Attorney for participating in the school-to-prison pipeline. Nothing about that says "gee this school probably handled everything correctly!"

So I turn, again, to your incredulous "she must have deserved it, let me make some stuff up" positioning here. There's nothing to defend here, yet you can't seem to stop defending it. I notice you didn't even address the fact you fabricated facts to support your credulous authority uber alles nonsense. What is your end game, exactly? It's not getting to the bottom of the situation or you wouldn't be making stuff up.

In my experience the staff at the schools really care about the kids and handle them (especially the little ones) with great kindness and compassion. That is my experience with my own children and that is my experience as a parent volunteer over the years. I have student taught middle school but I have never been a teacher, myself - took a different path.

I don't think that we have all of the details as to what happened in this situation. Most of what we're getting is coming from the child's very upset parent/guardian who is relaying what she was told because she wasn't there herself.

I am not fabricating facts at all, maybe you know things that I don't. All I can say is that it would be highly unusual for so many elementary school staff members to have such a hard time dealing with a typical childhood meltdown.

This is a lie. We have also heard from the Chief of Police and the State Attorney. Nevertheless, you persist in assuming that the procedures were followed. You also said she "kicked the crap out of her teacher." That didn't happen and wasn't reported anywhere. You apparently haven't even read coverage of what happened, just a headline or two, and come on here FABRICATING a narrative that paints the girl as a monster and all the adults as reasonable. Your experience as a parent volunteer is less than meaningless. You are embarrassing yourself.

Clearly the only reasonable people in this situation were the parent/guardian and this child. That is why the resource officer got fired. The school staff is lucky to still have their jobs.

The child doesn't even have to be reasonable. She's 6, FFS. She was having a tantrum. It's bad behavior, and bad behavior is expected and developmentally appropriate for little kids. Everyone else, from the staffer who turned it into a physical altercation to the disgraced cop, and especially the jerks in this thread insisting that this is all totally fine and must be called for somehow, is NUTS.

Fire them all.

[Anonymous]

He wasn’t reprimanded, he wasn’t placed on leave pending further investigation, none of that. Dude got fired tout suite and none of the teachers or administrative staff is advocating against it so what the F is the back and forth about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He wasn’t reprimanded, he wasn’t placed on leave pending further investigation, none of that. Dude got fired tout suite and none of the teachers or administrative staff is advocating against it so what the F is the back and forth about?

I heard that he was placed on leave and then fired after a brief investigation revealed that he did not follow proper procedure. Obviously we can't have rogue resource officers dragging 6 year old children out of school and arresting them. Not sure what triggered him to make that call but it was clearly not a good call on his part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not surprised to see this is a charter school. I wonder if this is a calculated move to arrest students with discipline problems so the parents move them back to their neighborhood school. Meanwhile as the discipline problems filter back to the neighborhood school, parents looking for a school climate without all those disruptive kids will move their kids to the charter school. Once this blows over the charter school isn't going to have regrets about this incident. Someone needs to reel in the charter school practice of getting rid of difficult students.

You are calling this 6 year old child a "discipline problem" after one meltdown and after she kicked one staff member one time?

Well many of us have managed to raise children who don’t kick people ever...especially not teachers at school...so...

...so... she deserved to be arrested?

No, I am saying she IS objectively a discipline problem. You seem to object to that since you put it in quotes.

She's an innocent 6 year old girl. Maybe it's a little early to be labeling her? What kind of help was she getting for her self control issues?

None apparently. It’s a “sleep disorder” according to her grandma who appears to be raising her.

Then clearly the answer is to fire the staff.

Or put the kid in a self contained class if she can’t keep her $hit together.

Would this be the next step for her? That would be a shame.

[Anonymous]

Dumb shit. Thread doesn't deserve 8 pages. About to ask Jeff to delete it altogether the "debate" is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only kicked someone. Gosh... that’s good to hear?

Seriously, WTF? We now expect our teachers to put up with physical abuse from their students? Come on. Let the teachers teach. This kid needs some sort of serious intervention and if her parent/guardian isn't providing it then maybe it needs to be court ordered.

You are dumb AF.

[Anonymous]

New poster, here's my two cents.

When DS was 6 in Kindergarten, he had a brain anomaly that caused a significant change in his behavior. it took two months to be diagnosed, and lucky for us was treated and is in full remission.

For the two months between his overnight change in behavior and diagnosis, he had very serious behavior problems - anxiety, physical responses to fear stimulus, random outburst, obstinacy and defiance, etc. At home, we were having to regularly pin him down and restrain him. At school, they evacuated the classroom multiple times, brought in multiple staffers to guard the doors of the class to prevent flight, and on one occasion me and the special ed teacher had to do the "two person physically drag him out of the class to a safe space" thing.

My kid is white - the school gave him and us the huge benefit of the doubt. He was suspended multiple times, but did not escalate to resource officer or other serious consequences.

Before a physical issue was found in his brain, we and his doctors were pouring over the DSM trying to figure out what was going on. Age-5 onset autism? ODD? anxiety? bipolar? BPD? I spent a lot of time reading about these disorders. You know what I found out?

- Mental disorders impact a HUGE portion of society. ADHD is easily 5-10% of kids. ASD is 2-5% now. Anxiety impacts a ton of kids. While there is overlap between those conditions, together they easily account for 10-13% of kids. Then add in the rarer ones like ODD, bipolar, BPD, etc.
- It is not abnormal for any of these disorders to come with physical violent/tantrum symptoms in kids.
- Kindergarten is the first time many kids have been put in environments that have the potential to really escalate these responses. ADHD and autism kids are highly responsive to sensory stimulus. Anxiety is obviously going to be a big problem for kids starting school. Etc. Families may have unknowingly put in place systems that have mitigated their kids' challenges at home, and kindergarten is really going to put them on display for the first time. No surprise, it takes a LONG time to get these issues sorted out once K starts, and that means a long time of challenges on full display in the classroom.
- While most kids don't have physical behavior problems in early elementary, the above disorders mean that it is not abnormal to see these responses. I was horrified by what was happening with my son (and extremely proactive in getting to the bottom of it), but the school assured me it wasn't the worst they would see that month, and they deal with physical stuff pretty frequently. That said, administration were pretty "martyr-like" about DS's physical behavior, and recorded everything in his file as "violent" "hitting" "assault" etc. His teacher and I became good friends, and she confided that what they would mark down as "attacked teacher" was pretty minor physical stuff that they see all the time. The school, as caring as they were, addressed everything the same - if son had a freak out and climbed under the table and knocked over his chair, they evacuated the classroom and brought 4 teachers in to stand at the doors with their arms crossed, and then one teacher would try and corner him to dial down his behavior. You can imagine that this is going to escalate the panicked out of control behavior quickly.
- Per several developmental pediatricians, young elementary age kids do not physically misbehave just to be brats. They do so because they genuinely don't have the tools to deal with what has bene thrown at them. You can have more philosophical conversations about bad behavior in later elementary school. But at age 6, a kid doesn't have physical outbursts because of "bad parenting".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New poster, here's my two cents.

When DS was 6 in Kindergarten, he had a brain anomaly that caused a significant change in his behavior. it took two months to be diagnosed, and lucky for us was treated and is in full remission.

For the two months between his overnight change in behavior and diagnosis, he had very serious behavior problems - anxiety, physical responses to fear stimulus, random outburst, obstinacy and defiance, etc. At home, we were having to regularly pin him down and restrain him. At school, they evacuated the classroom multiple times, brought in multiple staffers to guard the doors of the class to prevent flight, and on one occasion me and the special ed teacher had to do the "two person physically drag him out of the class to a safe space" thing.

My kid is white - the school gave him and us the huge benefit of the doubt. He was suspended multiple times, but did not escalate to resource officer or other serious consequences.

Before a physical issue was found in his brain, we and his doctors were pouring over the DSM trying to figure out what was going on. Age-5 onset autism? ODD? anxiety? bipolar? BPD? I spent a lot of time reading about these disorders. You know what I found out?

- Mental disorders impact a HUGE portion of society. ADHD is easily 5-10% of kids. ASD is 2-5% now. Anxiety impacts a ton of kids. While there is overlap between those conditions, together they easily account for 10-13% of kids. Then add in the rarer ones like ODD, bipolar, BPD, etc.
- It is not abnormal for any of these disorders to come with physical violent/tantrum symptoms in kids.
- Kindergarten is the first time many kids have been put in environments that have the potential to really escalate these responses. ADHD and autism kids are highly responsive to sensory stimulus. Anxiety is obviously going to be a big problem for kids starting school. Etc. Families may have unknowingly put in place systems that have mitigated their kids' challenges at home, and kindergarten is really going to put them on display for the first time. No surprise, it takes a LONG time to get these issues sorted out once K starts, and that means a long time of challenges on full display in the classroom.
- While most kids don't have physical behavior problems in early elementary, the above disorders mean that it is not abnormal to see these responses. I was horrified by what was happening with my son (and extremely proactive in getting to the bottom of it), but the school assured me it wasn't the worst they would see that month, and they deal with physical stuff pretty frequently. That said, administration were pretty "martyr-like" about DS's physical behavior, and recorded everything in his file as "violent" "hitting" "assault" etc. His teacher and I became good friends, and she confided that what they would mark down as "attacked teacher" was pretty minor physical stuff that they see all the time. The school, as caring as they were, addressed everything the same - if son had a freak out and climbed under the table and knocked over his chair, they evacuated the classroom and brought 4 teachers in to stand at the doors with their arms crossed, and then one teacher would try and corner him to dial down his behavior. You can imagine that this is going to escalate the panicked out of control behavior quickly.
- Per several developmental pediatricians, young elementary age kids do not physically misbehave just to be brats. They do so because they genuinely don't have the tools to deal with what has bene thrown at them. You can have more philosophical conversations about bad behavior in later elementary school. But at age 6, a kid doesn't have physical outbursts because of "bad parenting".

^What school system? Did this happen in Orlando, FL perchance? Appalachia?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dumb shit. Thread doesn't deserve 8 pages. About to ask Jeff to delete it altogether the "debate" is ridiculous.

Your use of profanity is vulgar. And I’ll never understand the adult imbeciles that run to Jeff to complain about thread topics. I mean FFS, get a life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New poster, here's my two cents.

When DS was 6 in Kindergarten, he had a brain anomaly that caused a significant change in his behavior. it took two months to be diagnosed, and lucky for us was treated and is in full remission.

For the two months between his overnight change in behavior and diagnosis, he had very serious behavior problems - anxiety, physical responses to fear stimulus, random outburst, obstinacy and defiance, etc. At home, we were having to regularly pin him down and restrain him. At school, they evacuated the classroom multiple times, brought in multiple staffers to guard the doors of the class to prevent flight, and on one occasion me and the special ed teacher had to do the "two person physically drag him out of the class to a safe space" thing.

My kid is white - the school gave him and us the huge benefit of the doubt. He was suspended multiple times, but did not escalate to resource officer or other serious consequences.

Before a physical issue was found in his brain, we and his doctors were pouring over the DSM trying to figure out what was going on. Age-5 onset autism? ODD? anxiety? bipolar? BPD? I spent a lot of time reading about these disorders. You know what I found out?

- Mental disorders impact a HUGE portion of society. ADHD is easily 5-10% of kids. ASD is 2-5% now. Anxiety impacts a ton of kids. While there is overlap between those conditions, together they easily account for 10-13% of kids. Then add in the rarer ones like ODD, bipolar, BPD, etc.
- It is not abnormal for any of these disorders to come with physical violent/tantrum symptoms in kids.
- Kindergarten is the first time many kids have been put in environments that have the potential to really escalate these responses. ADHD and autism kids are highly responsive to sensory stimulus. Anxiety is obviously going to be a big problem for kids starting school. Etc. Families may have unknowingly put in place systems that have mitigated their kids' challenges at home, and kindergarten is really going to put them on display for the first time. No surprise, it takes a LONG time to get these issues sorted out once K starts, and that means a long time of challenges on full display in the classroom.
- While most kids don't have physical behavior problems in early elementary, the above disorders mean that it is not abnormal to see these responses. I was horrified by what was happening with my son (and extremely proactive in getting to the bottom of it), but the school assured me it wasn't the worst they would see that month, and they deal with physical stuff pretty frequently. That said, administration were pretty "martyr-like" about DS's physical behavior, and recorded everything in his file as "violent" "hitting" "assault" etc. His teacher and I became good friends, and she confided that what they would mark down as "attacked teacher" was pretty minor physical stuff that they see all the time. The school, as caring as they were, addressed everything the same - if son had a freak out and climbed under the table and knocked over his chair, they evacuated the classroom and brought 4 teachers in to stand at the doors with their arms crossed, and then one teacher would try and corner him to dial down his behavior. You can imagine that this is going to escalate the panicked out of control behavior quickly.
- Per several developmental pediatricians, young elementary age kids do not physically misbehave just to be brats. They do so because they genuinely don't have the tools to deal with what has bene thrown at them. You can have more philosophical conversations about bad behavior in later elementary school. But at age 6, a kid doesn't have physical outbursts because of "bad parenting".

EXCELLENT post, extremely perceptive. Right down to the school admin being as inflammatory as possible in their written comments and having no clue about desescalation -- obviously CYA to justify use of force.

The only thing I would add is that there are extremely well-researched and EFFECTIVE ways to intervene to reduce aggressive behavior and provide additional supports - but all too often, the school takes a punitive approach (even with my 3 year old!) and sits on their hands and waits for everything to fall apart, instead of engaging with these resources. After dealing with my kid's behavioral issues, that is still the single thing that gets me the most: how the school completely failed to engage evidence-based resources to solve a known and common issue.

Anyway, glad your son is better! We got interventions for our son at 3 and a strong IEP, and now at 6, he behaves (almost) perfectly. But I have no doubt that if we were black with fewer resources, we could be in the exact same position as this 6 year old girl and her Grandma.