Young Writers Society

By The Associated Press
(4/22/05 - ST. PETERSBURG, FL) — An attorney says he plans legal action against Florida police officers who handcuffed an unruly five-year-old girl.

Police were called to the elementary school in St. Petersburg March 14th after the girl acted up in her kindergarten class.

A video camera, which was rolling as part of a classroom exercise that day, captured images of the girl tearing papers off a bulletin board, climbing on a table and punching an assistant principal.

Then it shows the child appearing to calm down before three officers approach, pin her arms behind her back and put handcuffs on her as she screams, "No!"

After being placed in the back of a police cruiser, the girl was released to her mother.

A lawyer for the girl's mother says the officers went too far. He says "It's incomprehensible."

Police are investigating the incident.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

I have been watching this develop for quite a few days now. At first, I thought that the teacher was just defedning herself. When I saw that the child calmed and was still handcuffed, I was outraged. This was disgraceful. The teacher evidently doesn't understand children. The teacher should have walked away from the child and let her stop herself. Disgraceful.

A good teacher knows how to subdue an unruly child. Period. The end. There is absolutly no reason that the police should have been involved. I am absolutly disgusted with the behaviour of all the adults involved.

Good! Just a few more incidents such as this and maybe class can just be held in jail cells!

Anyhow...

Galatea is absolutely right; any good teacher knows how to take of an unruly child, and even bad teachers do as well. I've seen plenty of kids get into terrible tantrums, and all you do is walk away and wait for them to calm down. Then you make them either sit in time-out or you make them sit outside in the hall for a bit. In extreme cases, you send them down to the principal's office.

But, there also needs to be a lot more discipline in the classroom; students these days get away with an awful lot.

The way to punish unruly five-year-olds: Take away toys. In corner for five minutes. Send to sit in principal's office if still out of control.

Why did this woman become a teacher if she cannot handle children who misbehave?

yeah I worked with brats for two months. The easiest way to rule them is to think like them more or less.

You also have to talk to them like people. They are not "just children." It's so easy for adults and teens to forget they were kids once.

Good! Just a few more incidents such as this and maybe class can just be held in jail cells!

My old elementry school had a barbed wire fence, facing in. Like a prision. So it is odd you should mention it.

The way to punish unruly five-year-olds: Take away toys. In corner for five minutes. Send to sit in principal's office if still out of control.

No toys. The corner trick has been tried on me before. My reaction was "Now what?" My parents disciplined me using the good ole spanking, but I doubt that would be appropriate.

It's kind of sad really. Disciplining children shouldn't be a part of the Teachers job description.

yeah I worked with brats for two months. The easiest way to rule them is to think like them more or less.

I sort of do this with my scout troop.

You also have to talk to them like people. They are not "just children." It's so easy for adults and teens to forget they were kids once.

At age five, kids are kids. Most of them do not have the understanding that you might have in teenagers. By all means, talk to them according to their age, but don't forget that they are kids, and they don't understand everything.

What I'm most interested in is why the kid was angry. She apparently was angry enough to trash the room, punch an assistant principal, and acting like an animal. It could be that this child was acting unpredictable, which prompted a call to the cops, due to a failure of imagination.

If this is the case, the cops would have reason to take her into custody. If she suddenly flared up, they would probably use the customary take down.

This is only an idea of what might have happened. An investigation needs to be done before we start condemning.

Just FYI but when I reschearched this on the internet I found two versions of the story, this one was written by the AP so I chose this one and it was also on the most websites, but the other one I found said that the teacher was detributing jelly beans throughout the class (somehow working math into it) and the girl started fooling aroud so the teacher took away her jelly beans, thats when she started acting unruly. Can someone say SUGAR ADDICTION? Her parents probaly feed her sugar 24/7 and so when the teacher took those jellybeans away she went berserk.

Yes, but there is a difference between talking to children so they will understand you and talking to them like lesser beings or a separate species, as I have seen many adults do. Personally, I think kids understand more than we give them credit for these days.

And you're right, teachers shouldn't have to discipline their students. Parents should teach children how to behave from the start. Unfortunately, many either don't know how, or ae too lazy to.

And maybe it didn't work on you, Griffin, but I know many children whom it did work on. I obviously can't speak for all children who were spanked, but most of the people in my school who did recieve physical punishment as the main form of disciplin at home had very little disciplin in schools, little or no respect for authority in the school, had serious attitude problems, were more likely to get detention or be suspended, and often had lower marks.

Uh, Rei, you do realize you just contradicted yourself? You're saying the people who DIDN'T get spanked had the problems or the kids who did?

I was spanked on occasion. It didn't work to correct the problems it intended to fix.

And you are surprised how...?

Do you people have some problem understanding my Canadian? It's not all that different from American English. I said that the people who WERE spanked had those problems.

I was a very selfish spoiled little brat when I was five, I would never do as I was told, I would cry for attention, jump about, scream and throw tantrums if I didn't get what I wanted. Spanking meh didn't help, I went even more madder crying mah head off. Taking away my toys caused me to go mad and scream, and taking away mah dinner would make me chuck stuff about the room screaming I hate you to my parents.

When I was ignored I hated even more and screamed but they carried on ignoring me, and I got bored and started saying I was sorry and that and they would talk to meh again. So now I'm not that bad Now I'm not THAT bad but I'm still a spoiled brat.

But getting the police is wrong. The teacher should of ignored the kid until she got bored, then once she is calm then something can be done. Or there would be much more problems if the girl was still nuts. Realleh, they should look at it from the kid's point of view!!

Reichieru wrote:Do you people have some problem understanding my Canadian? It's not all that different from American English. I said that the people who WERE spanked had those problems.

Well you said I know many people who it did work on so I was confused. Probably just a typo. Sorry.