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Originally Posted by raeanna74
No negative reinforcement is punishment of some sort, not removal of stimulus. Positive reinforcement is rewards, and encouragement. This is what I was taught in EVERY Elementary Education class.
Also the number of cops used was in an effort to restrain her without injuring her. She resisted them putting the cuffs on her. One firmly held one arm, one the other, and the third put the cuffs on instead of slapping cuffs on hard enough to click them closed and being rough with her.
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That's a shame, because shakran is correct. Negative reinforcement is the removal of a stimulus. You (or your class, perhaps) are mixing punishment and reinforcement.
The main issues I see here are that the girl was calm by the time the police arrived. She didn't, as was inaccurately stated by a previous member, fight the police when they came in the room.
The teacher was filming the student. The student knew she was on camera and we don't know, without a careful psychological evaluation, how much of an effect that had on her actions. She might have been reinacting what she's seen on numerous television shows or she may have been acting for the camera on her own. Either way, the camera should have not been rolling during her tantrum, especially once it became clear it was having an effect on her behavior. Even adults act ridiculous in front of lenses. This area of human psychology is probably ripe for study if it hasn't already been done.
The teacher shouldn't have stood there and tried to calm the child down once it became clear that was acting as a stimulus for the behavior. The child was begging for, and receiving, attention. The introduction of all the postive stimulii (attention from the teacher, attention from the camera, attention from the police) reinforced her behavior. She got exactly what she desired and none of this, in any way, will reduce her behavior in the future. I wonder if the whole lot of you recommending parenting classes along with physical violence would be surprised to find that child development classes would reiterate what I just wrote and explain how your spankings would actually reinforce the behavior--not reduce it.
The mother couldn't come to her child's aid. We don't know why, but we can assume she was at work rather than at home doing drugs (which I've heard/read in various parts of online/real-life venues). The child was well-dressed, well-groomed, and even if it was a dual-parent home, it's not unreasonable to infer that the mother was at work. My mother couldn't just leave work when a problem erupted at school. Anger directed at schools or mothers for how children are raised is better directed at the socio-economic milleiu that demands these kinds of realities.
What could have been done?
The same thing that institutions around the United States do with children experiencing behavioral problems: give the child positive attention or remove attention.
1. The teacher could have left the room. Plain and simple, the child was reacting to the adult. She was tearing things off the wall. She wasn't holding a gun. The worst case scenario is that she would get up on a desk and fall off. Besides that being absurd, a child certainly doesn't lose sense of balance simply because she's angry, children fall off things all the time and don't end up in the hospital.
2. The adult (and even the adult holding the pointless/repulsive video camera and filming the event which was later released to the public) could have and should have grabbed the child and given her a hug until the child calmed down. My wife does this all the time. It works. The woman was very large and certainly capable of wrapping herself around the child without being hurt by the girl. The girl's arms weren't even long enough to wrap around the body of the woman--that is, she wouldn't have been able to even swing her fists if the woman had grabbed that child in a huge bear hug. The child would have calmed down in around 15 minutes--but certainly less than the hour it took with the adults amping her up by their interaction with her tantrum.
She wanted attention and she received attention. It's up to the adults to determine how they want to mete out attention--through love and restraint or antagonism and violence.
And for all of who claiming to interact with young children on a daily basis, if you disagree with what I wrote, all you have to do is try it once. It's not like that's going to ruin your child's upbringing. Just one time you might consider grabbing your reacting child and holding him/her very tight and explaining over and over that you love him/her. Don't worry, I love you. Yes, don't worry, your father is here. I love you. I love you.
See what happens when you do that. It may take longer than a swift kick or smack on the behind, but perhaps the delayed gratification of feeling good about discipline, about stopping the behavior will pay off in dividends in the long run as you see the behavior decrease over time.