Pickney in cuffs…..
Yesterday, I saw an item on CNN Headline News that made me look around the net for some details. Indeed, in St. Petersburg, Florida, a five year old girl was handcuffed by Police because of an ‘outburst’ at school. Apparently her mother is taking legal action against the Police. Here is the story at Yahoo.
Now, I have a few questions…..how can a five year old child be so dysfunctional that it takes cuffs to make her tow the line? Can it be acceptable for a five year old pickney to behave in such a way? Kicking teacher? Tearing papers off the wall? The ‘tantrum’ does seem abnormal to me….and I do not think that is because I have no children…the pickney want some good beating! Give the pickney a good backsiding rather than cuff her….then again….is America, you cyaan beat pickney….right!? The Child Welfare Activists will be on your ass! 
It will be interesting to see what comes out of this. But, to me, the little girl needs to learn to tow the line, the ‘outburst’ at this age does not sit well for her in the future…how will she conduct herself when she becomes a teenager? The handcuffing seems excessive to me. 
To sum it up….I still feel that raising children the way in which I was…in the Caribbean….does a hell of a lot more for them, rather than the ‘leggo beast’ way that plenty of them in the ‘First World’ growing up today. Any thoughts here?
April 26th, 2005 at 9:31 am I briefly saw that clip on CNN the other day, but didn’t get the full story and forgot all about it. But this goes back to Jdid’s post of today. wha wrong wid de children of today, dem just straight outta control. Cuffing her might have seem outta place, but at the rate she was behaving it might have been the thing to do to help calm her down, or next yuh know, she off and cuff one ah de cops… Man when ah see things like this, is when ah sey, well muh chile nuh bad after all…..
April 26th, 2005 at 10:04 am I agree with you Doc. Not saying I don’t have problems with my kids but certainly there has to be a better way than let then do whatever they want. Society has rules and they must follow them. How do you enforce without enforcing?
April 26th, 2005 at 12:58 pm 3 words… HEAR, HEAR, HEAR!!!!! heh. I like the way you put it too - ‘leggo beast’ - that sums it up very well, Dr. D - very well indeed. What scares me more is that THESE ‘beasts’ are our future… these are the people who will be looking after our welfare when we can no longer do so… ouch! That doan sit right wid me at all.
April 26th, 2005 at 2:13 pm Hi Dr. D. I saw a little of that and I was disgusted to see that child put in handcuffs. Mind you, she may have deserved two ra$$ lick, but then again -this is American. I feel the school authorities should have called the mother or father first and inform them of what was going on. I didn’t get the whole story, maybe the school authorities did call the parensts. Who knows. But such behavior is abnormal. Have a great day.
April 26th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
April 26th, 2005 at 3:17 pm I won’t think they had handcuffs that small
April 26th, 2005 at 4:04 pm nuff lawless children abound! actually i remember Shauna over at in Saerch of Satisfaction posted a lil something about some of the behavior of the kids in her school a while back, pretty shocking Check it here
April 26th, 2005 at 4:37 pm Thank God u don’t have any pickney Dr. D.!!! Everyone seems to agree that the childs behavior was abnormal, which suggests that there is something very wrong with the child more than just damn rude…..this could be a manifestation of something more serious…abuse, broken home, any number of things. I cannot imagine a 5 year old girl child needing to be restrained by handcuffs. Any policeman that needs to use handcuffs to restrain a 5 yr old girl needs to get another job….and this was 3 of them!!!!! People we need to temper our response to situations, and try and find out the truth behind them, so we can get to constructive solutions. Beating the poor child blue, handcuffing etc, may have escalated the problem this child has. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in spanking and all of my 5 kids have been spanked at one time or another in the 17 years experience of having kids…(some more than others), but it is not my first line punishment….and when it is done, i make sure I am in control of my temper. My hope and prayer is that this 5 year old is not scarred by this experience, and also that she will get help to correct the problems she obviously has.
April 26th, 2005 at 8:37 pm I think we are all agreed that this likkle 5 year old is not normal…suppem do her. I have no idea what she is being taught at home, what she watching on TV, what sort of violence she may be exposed to…but clearly, she needs to be taken in hand. I would probably have grabbed her by her two hands and simply held her down if I were the teacher, but in America dem would probably want to carry me to courthouse…. Phleg, I am not saying that beating is necessarily a first line of defence to tow the line with children, my parents only had to give me certain look to remind me of my ‘place’…I was scarcely given any whupping…. This all speaks to poor parenting…but why are we surprised….many of these children are being borne of babes themselves…who are poor role models…and the cycle repeats itself…. (I knew this one would bring plenty comment…why you think me post it!?
April 27th, 2005 at 10:17 pm This is nothing new to me. I work in a school and just had a similar incident a month ago. It was a six-year old boy and he was out of control. When it began to look as if he might harm himself by jumping out a window, the school called the police to restrain him. The school *must* call the police to restrain the child, otherwise the school gets sued. You simply can’t lay your hands on a child in the United States. Parents also call the police because if they try to physically calm a child or even defend themselves against a violent child, *they* end up in jail. It sucks. Whatever happened to the days of a good ass whipping! Why did they create these laws anyway? To get rid of child abuse? That didn’t happen. We now not only have children who are still systmatically abused, but also children who are out of control and hurting others.