Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

maleficent · 02-08-2006, 11:01 AM

Brockton boy's ability to sexually harass girl questioned

Quote:

By Maria Papadopoulos, ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
Brockton parent Leona McNair has taught her two young boys to "high-five" other children while in school to prevent any inappropriate physical contact.

"When you send your kids to school, as a parent you need to teach them what is proper, what is not proper," the 27-year-old homemaker said Tuesday. "You don't touch other kids' bodies."

Her comments came after a 6-year-old boy was suspended from his Brockton elementary school for three days last week after officials said he put two fingers inside a girl's waistband, touching her skin, during a class.

The case sparked debate among parents, educators, psychologists and lawmakers over whether a child that age is capable of sexual harassment.

"It can happen in the sense that a 6-year-old child is capable of saying to himself, 'She doesn't like it when I touch her, so I think I'll bother her,' " said Elizabeth Englander, a Bridgewater State College psychologist and author of "Understanding Violence."

But "when we think of sexual harassment, we think of somebody who is approaching somebody inappropriately as a sexual threat, and a 6-year-old's probably not capable of that level of plotting," Englander said.

The Brockton case is not the first time that a 6-year-old child has been accused of sexual harassment.

In a landmark court case in 1993, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights ruled that the Eden Prairie school district in Minnesota had unlawfully allowed boys to sexual harass a first-grade girl and several other elementary and junior high school girls. Some of the boys, ages 6 to 9, had made lewd comments about the male anatomy and called the girls derogatory sex-related names, according to the National Association of State Boards of Education in Virginia.

The Minnesota case, a generally heightened awareness of sexual harassment and knowledge of the legal implications for failing to address harassment may have contributed to the strict school-district policies that result in a child of a young age being accused of this behavior, experts say.

"It's something you have to address legally," said Sheilah A. Reardon, principal at the East Taunton Elementary School.

In the Brockton case, Berthena Dorinvil, the boy's mother, said he does not know what sexual harassment is and in the wake of the Downey school's action, she wants him transferred to another school.

Meanwhile, lawmakers on Beacon Hill also talked about the case amid debate over a bill that would require children as young as pre-kindergarten to study a statewide health curriculum that would include sex education.

"I find it pretty hard for a 6-year-old to sexually harass someone else. I'll leave it up to school authorities to judge that," state Rep. David Flynn, D- Bridgewater, who has nine children and 21 grandchildren, said Tuesday.

The Brockton public schools' policy defines sexual harassment as "repeated, unwanted, or unwelcomed verbalisms or behaviors of a sexist nature related to a person's sex or sexual orientation." It gives several examples, including "uninvited physical contact such as touching, hugging, patting or pinching."

Englander, the psychologist, said children are naturally curious and very physical, and almost any kind of touching may be considered "normal" unless it is sexualized or mimicking sexual acts.

School districts are required by state law to have codes of conduct for students, said Melanie Winklosky, state Department of Education spokeswoman.

"We expect that the schools are going to write the codes of conduct so that they're developmentally appropriate for the ages of students," Winklosky said.

Winklosky said the state does not track suspensions in school districts and only learns of sexual harassment cases if a complaint is filed by a parent to the department's Program Quality Assurance Services division.

Locally, other school officials contacted Tuesday said they had not encountered sexual harassment cases among students at the elementary level, but would investigate them if that situation arose.

"I've learned in the business to say 'Never say never,' " said Whitman-Hanson Superintendent John McEwan.

McEwan said suspension is an option at all grade levels "because if we need to send a message loud and clear that the behavior is unacceptable, then exclusion from school, for one day or whatever, sends that message."

Robert H. Smith, principal of the Moreau Hall Elementary School in Easton, said all such complaints, from a boy or a girl, must be taken seriously.

"Civil rights has no age limit on it, whether it's a 5-year-old or a 15-year-old or a 20-year-old," Smith said.

Reardon, the Taunton principal, said that with television, movies and the Internet, children may be exposed to adult behavior at a young age. "They could be imitating what they've seen," she said.

The allegation of sexual harassment by a first-grader surprised Brockton parents but some said it should not be brushed off.

"It needs to be addressed," McNair said. "There's a teacher and aide in every classroom, so who is supervising this behavior?"

and another
School decision angers mother

Quote:

CARBONDALE - An incident on a Carbondale school bus this week has parents and school officials sorting out youthful indiscretion from potentially criminal behavior.

According to the mother of a 6-year-old Parrish School kindergarten student, a 7-year-old boy was suspended from riding his school bus for a week and is banned from recess after he behaved inappropriately toward her daughter.

The girl's mother, whose name is being withheld by The Southern Illinoisan to protect the child's identity, said her daughter was molested on the school bus Monday and threatened later in the halls of her school by a first-grade boy from her neighborhood.

The mother pulled her daughter from riding the bus and said she was considering a move to another school district.

John Williams, interim superintendent of Carbondale Elementary School District 95, said the children who were involved have been separated and are monitored at a "high level" in the building

Parrish School officials would not comment on the disciplinary action taken against the boy accused of inappropriate behavior.

According to the girl's mother, her daughter was sitting on the bus on the way home from school when the boy sat down next to her. The boy, apparently dared by another boy, reached his hand into the girl's pants and underwear.

She apparently screamed because she was startled, and was told by the bus monitor to be quiet. When she got home, she told her mother what had happened. The mother called the bus company.

"They told me not to call anybody, not to call the police," she said. "They told me just to deal with it through the school."

The girl's mother went to the school administration with her complaint. She said she was told the boy would be banned from the bus for a week and would be required to eat lunch with the principal.

She said the school told her the same thing about contacting an outside agency.

"The school told me not to talk to anyone about it, that they'd handle it," she said.

On Wednesday, the boy apparently approached the girl in the hallway and told her he would kill her mother. The school informed the mother of the incident.

"They told me that his 'life at Parrish is over,'" the mother said, noting that she was told the boy will be banned from all school privileges.

Still, the girl's mother is outraged. A single, working mother, she said she does her best to keep her children safe from bad influences and dangerous situations. When her child is at school, she said, she trusts that teachers and staff are acting in her stead. She feels her trust has been betrayed.

"I don't feel there was really anything done about this," she said. "This makes me really angry. This could happen to someone else's child. It better not happen to mine again."

The girl's mother said her daughter, who has always loved school and preschool, cries now at the thought of attending school where the boy is. She wants her daughter away from the boy, but said that since they are in the same school district, separation isn't always possible.

"I think there should be an alternative school for kids like that," she said. "He should be treated like a sex offender because that's what he is. I think he should get counseling."

Lynda Killoran, child and adolescent clinical services manager at Southern Illinois Regional Social Services, said the age of the children must factor into the perspective of the problem, but that such an incident should be taken seriously by school officials and parents.

"Kids misbehave," she said. "There are a whole list of behaviors that a child can exhibit - acting out can be just one of them. He could have touched her on the head, he could have knocked her elbow, he could have taken her books - but instead he put his hands down her pants. So it could just be that he needs to learn his boundaries and to keep his hands to himself. But on the other hand, it does raise a red flag as to where he learned that kind of behavior."

Killoran said there are three levels at which the boy could have been exposed to the idea of inappropriate touching. He could have seen it on television or in a magazine, learned it from watching the behaviors of those close to him, or he himself was touched in such a way.

"I think it does throw up a flag and somebody should sit down and talk to him and find out some information," she said. "Maybe there are parts we don't know, maybe he's touched other kids - there is just too much information that is missing.

"I understand the mom is upset. Who wants that to happen to their child?" Killoran said. "But on the other hand, I would ask her, 'What would be severe enough?' I'm sure she doesn't want the 7-year-old locked up."

Carbondale Police Chief Steve Odum said if his office had gotten such a call, if the mother had chosen to involve the police rather than the school, it is probable the problem would have been referred back to the school.

"We would probably use our youth officers, who have special training in interviewing young children," he said. "But we would probably refer the case back to the school and the families to counseling."

The children at Parrish School are in pre-K, kindergarten and first grades.

"Children touching each other like that is certainly not normal behavior that we have to deal with too often," Williams said. "More often we see problems with physical striking, but occasionally this type of inappropriate behavior does occur and that is what is being addressed."

Williams said when children behave in an inappropriate manner, parents are called in immediately. Counselors have already been called in to help both sides sort through the incident, he said.

"Unfortunately, these things happen. Children misbehave and some of those issues are more serious than others. This is something that needs to be addressed," he said. "It requires intervention from other sources not just as disciplinary matter, but from a counseling aspect as well. It is being carefully monitored."

After reading the first article, I wondered if a child that young could honestly be capable of sexually harassing another child... then i stumbled into the second article -- and i'm pretty much appalled... are children really capable of sexual harassment?