liquidlight

Why are you continuing to dwell on this as if the child didn't have an understanding of her actions? And to what level would the behavior have to escalate before it became unacceptable because as you put it, she's a five-year-old child.

At some point these "children" have to held accountable, the constant justification and exoneration is how the entire planet has ended up in a cesspool of unresponsible young adults becase when they were a five-year-old child someone told them that their behavior wasn't their fault because they were a five-year-old child.

Of course distinctions need to be made, but even a two-year-old should be helped to understand that there are consequences for their actions. I honestly think we'd be better off if we stopped blaming the police, or the camera, or the girls mother, and held this girl, a five-year-old child, accountable for her actions! She is capable of compreshension, of reasoning, of understanding, that's WHY she was in school to begin with, after the previous outburst she had been warned what would happen and the police officer simply followed through, and I admire him for having the courage to not cave simply because she's a five-year-old child.

I stand by what I said earlier, if this were my five-year-old (and yes, I do have a little girl that just turned 5 last month) I would hope that that this situation never occured, but if it did I would prefer that the officer be consistent in the punishment and put her into handcuffs and perhaps make a point with her that I'd been unable to get across.

I don't know where your wife teaches, but even when I was in school, and that's been more than 15 years now, teachers were not allowed to have direct physical contact with the students pretty much under any circumstances. Even for emergency situations like CPR or choking there was only one teacher authorized to administer the treatments because of the necessity for physical contact. It was policy at the school to limit liability because of the litigious nature of society, a rule designed under the "avoid the very appearance of evil" thought process and I wouldn't doubt that this school has a similar policy.

Personally I prefer this method of deterrence, however there are times that it's simply counter-productive. You said yourself that often this behavior is simply a method for getting attention, so how do you justify giving additional positive attention as a viable recourse in deterring the behavior? Unless my logic is seriously off here, if doing something gets you more of what you want, why wouldn't you not only continue to do it, but only amplify the behavior?

And shakran, your solution still doesn't provide a method quantifying which of these students should be shipped to the "last chance" schools where they are in more than effect simply babysat or flunked out. Are you suggesting that any kid that talks in class be automatically shipped out to these schools that have a very limited available enrollment and then just forget about it? All that does is shift the lawsuit another direction as these parents then claim that it's the schools fault for being negligent and simply pushing the children off on someone else. When are we going to stop passing the buck and start supporting the people that stand up for something, stand up for these teachers rights and give them and the other students that this girl wasted their time and energy an equal respect and stop treating this little girl as a victim and glorifying the behavior?

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