Just kind of like whenever anybody upsets me. Like I just kind of want to tear them apart... I think it's not ever going to go away... It's just who I am.
-Aidan
This news story has gone international. An eight-year old boy in Lakewood, Colorado went, what we use to call, "ape sh*it" at school and the police were summoned. The cops ended up pepper spraying him and putting him in handcuffs. People are split on whether or not pepper spraying the kid was a good idea. No one seems too upset about the handcuffs, though.
This is not the first time the boy exhibited rage during school hours, he has done so twice before and each time the police were called in. The mother admits her son has "a temper" and is in counseling but is quoted by Denver Nine News as saying, "It's hard. Do you listen to what the teachers tell you? Or do you listen to your child?"
OK, we have a eight year old kid who's behavior at school is beyond the pale.
We have a school system which does not hold either the child or his parent responsible for the child's behavior. The boy was still in school after doing something like this twice before?
We have a parent who evidently doesn't know that she should be listening to the adults who have been around enough children to recognize disturbed behavior when the see it and not to her eight year old son.
And we have a police department which thinks that reacting to an out of control eight year old as if he is a violent felon is fine.
I think the wrong person got pepper sprayed here and, if the quote at the top of this post is any indication, we will be hearing about this boy again sometime in the near future.
4 comments:
I agree!!!!!!!
I noticed a "my little darling can do no wrong" nentality when my kids were growing up. My little darlings could do wrong -- and did. I started punish bad behavior when they were two or three. I governed under the philosophy that little kids commit little sins and if you take care of those when they're little, you won't have big problems later. It worked. They are decent responsible people. The worst thing committed was when my daughter got caught drinking underage -- at age 19 (which was not illegal when I was 19). The cool part was when they tried to get her to tell who gave her the beer, she wouldn't tell them because she said, "I knew what I was doing and no one force fed me so I have to take responsibility for my choices." It garnered her a lot of respect from her college friends and I was intensely proud of her. She and her brother are in their late 30s now (Yikes! How did they get so old?) and are good, stable people. As a parent, I did a lot of thinking about how I could best raise my children and I guess their dad and I did something right.
Yep, you and their dad did do a great job. What I cannot understand are the people who expect a two month old puppy to understand the word no but not their two year old child. No wonder there is an unending supply of families for Jo Frost to straight out on the reality TV show Super Nanny.
A favorite question at our house was "What part of the word 'no' don't you understand? If that question was asked they knew the final judgement was passed. And today my son and his wife are raising two really nice boys ages 11 and 9 who are well-mannered and well-disciplined. (I'm guessing that our son asks the same question because I've heard him with his swimmers [he's a coach]. My daughter once said to me, shortly after she went away to college, "You know, I'm really proud of you -- you've really let go." I said, "Oh?" She continued, "You were always right there while we were at home and now you just let us live our lives. " I replied the point of the exercise was that when it was time to loose you and your brother on an un-suspecting world that I could sleep at night. And your dad and I are really proud of the people you are. You are decent responsible people and not everyone can say that about their children. No, they aren't perfect but they are contributing, independent adults -- unlike many of their peers. And I'm not raising my grands like so many women I know.
Well done, Kay, you have a right to be very proud of them and yourself. :)
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