Parental Discretion is Ill-Advised

Kindergartner handcuffed, taken to police station after allegedly throwing tantrum -- and furniture

"The family of a 6-year-old Georgia girl is upset at police and school officials after the girl was handcuffed and taken to a police station for allegedly throwing furniture, tearing items off the walls and knocking over a shelf, which injured the principal." - Courtesy of MSNBC.com

Summary viewpoint of the girl's family: How dare you handcuff a 6 year old kindergartner! Did calling the police really have to be the first step? She was shaken up by the whole experience. She may have misbehaved, but not enough to warrant an arrest.

Summary viewpoint of the school/police: There were several attempts to calm the child down and there were several attempts to contact her parents. The 6 year old was fighting, throwing items, damaging school property, and biting. For the safety of the child and the protection of school employees/property, she was detained as anyone else exhibiting behavior like that would have been.

My viewpoint: Get that child some counseling and be thankful the school stepped in! Tragedies are born from schools that don't.

Being an Aunt 8 times over, I have seen my fair share of temper tantrums and yes, some of them had exorcism-like qualities. Children can certainly act crazy with a side of psychotic. However, I think it is completely unfair to throw stones at the school staff and local police for how they chose to handle this young soul who was temporarily possessed by a spawn of Satan. It would be interesting to see how the tables would have turned had those parents been the parents of another child in that school. What if instead of calling the police, the school officials had decided to write off her tantrum as "a kid being a kid" and let her go back to her class where she was free to go ballistic and injure her fellow classmates. I bet if her parents had been the parents of those other kids, they would be out to crucify the maladjusted child (and her parents) and would probably question the school staff as to why they weren't proactive enough.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. School officials always seem to be at the pointy-end of the sword and always seem to be at fault. They're the first to be hanged when a case of bullying goes to far without their intervention, and they're the first to be slapped on the wrist when parents claim they impeded parental rights after taking the initiative to prevent a situation.

This is classic conundrum seems to be rampant among American families. A toxic mixture of entitlement coupled with a "hands-off" mentality. Protect my child, but don't make an example of my child if they're the one that others need protection from. Crack down on bullying, but don't punish my child for "just being a kid". Are you serious? You can't have it both ways. At some point, you have to hold yourself (and especially your child) responsible and hold yourselves to the same standard as everyone else. If your kid goes bat-shit crazy in school, you should be the first to scold your child's erratic behavior. You should be the first to admit that your child was wrong and you should be the first to thank your local officials for trying to scare the reality back into your child. Children should not be given the impression that destroying school property and being disrespectful to adults is acceptable behavior, least of all by their parents.

So my advice? Two things:

1. Stop throwing proverbial tomatoes at the people who acted in the best interest of your child (and other people's children) - they had a difficult choice to make and I assure you the experience won't have any long-term negative effects on your child. In fact, the experience may open their eyes as to how actions like that are dealt with and may prevent furture tantrums.

2. Talk to your child about appropriate behavior and determine if there was a cause for the outburst - perhaps your child is having difficulty with something that you can help them with. You know, be a parent.

K8