Tonight I read this little news clip in Children's Ministry Magazine:
Massachusetts--A 7-year old boy was recently handcuffed and shackled by police after he alledgedly assaulted several teachers at his school during a temper tantrum. The boy, who is a special needs student, was attending the school for the first time on the day he was handcuffed. Administrators were unaware of the boy's special needs issues because of paperwork problems. It goes on to say that he struck a couple of teachers and a police officer. The child now faces assault charges.
The boy is tramatized from being forcibly restrained, according to the dept. of Social Services. The police and principal defended restraining the boy, saying it was the only way to control him before he hurt himself.
I couldn't believe it when I read this, especially after reading of a similar situation a few days ago.
Some questions to discuss:
Is it okay to handcuff a child who is hurting others?
Would the situation have been different if he hadn't been special needs?
I thought there were professionals out there who knew how to deal with special needs kids. Handcuffs??? C'mon.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I just had to comment on this one - I saw video footage of something like this on TV not too long ago.... exactly my thoughts!!! My hubby works with a few extremely high needs autistic kids and yes they all have restraint training! The kid is 7... how much damage could he really do that they couldn't have figured some kind of restraint measures - special needs or not!!
(I like the new picture)
I've been working with high needs kids for the past four years...
It is definitely the rule of thumb that if they're hurting themselves or others, you need to restrain them..but handcuffs??? I would never in my line of work let anyone put handcuffs on a 7 year old...nor would any other proffessional child worker who knew what they were doing. This poor kid probably ended up in a classroom where the teachers were scared of him and had no idea how to handle a child who wasn't sitting quietly and paying attnetion in his seat. As if it's his fault that there were paperwork problems.
Okay. I work in a Mental Health Hospital. We are taught a course called "Non-Violent Crisis Intervention" so we know how to deal with difficult clients (adults). Couldn't they have done some other type of controlled technique rather than handcuff the poor kid! People are cooked. Gotta pray for this family...the poor boy...difficult or not, that is just absolutely atrocious!!!!
Aren't kids taught that police are there to help them not harm them? This kid is gonna be scared of the police for the rest of his life. And the issue is all because schools cannot keep up with the paperwork...how sad!
Post a Comment