Cruel and Unusual Punishment
A 6 year old kindergartener was handcuffed, arrested, fingerprinted, charged with a felon and sent to jail. Her crime? She had a temper tantrum at school. According to the news report, Desre Watson disrupted the class with a temper tantrum. When she would not calm down, stop crying or leave the room the police were called. Seems she threw chairs and hit a second teacher who came to help the first teacher handle the situation. Columnist, Bob Herbert, spoke to the Avon Park, Florida police chief, Frank Mercurio. Evidently arresting 6 year olds is common practice there.There are several definitions of the word felony. Most common is: "One of several grave crimes, such as murder, rape, or burglary, punishable by a more stringent sentence than that given for a misdemeanor" or "characterized under federal law and many state statutes as any offense punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year." Is having a temper tantrum now considered a felony? If so, many pro-sports figures seem to be getting away with committing them.
A tantrum is about control. A baby hungry baby cries to get fed. If the demand for nourishment is not met, the baby learns to howl more. As the baby grows and tries to learn to do simple chores, it may become frustrated and, in anger have a "temper tantrum". Something gets thrown. Adults do this too. Think: road rage. The baby has no control over when it will get fed. The toddler lacks the skills to control actions needed to do simple tasks like pick up a fork. Fussy parents who expect too much, too soon from a child will tend to add to the child's frustration. An adult has no control over the rude driver that just cut them off or slowness of traffic jams. Anger over something a baby, child, adult can not control is what sets off a fit of temper.
Comments
donnalay
(Guest)
(Guest)
01/20/2010
Finally, someone who refuses to take whatever a child has to dish out! Adults everywhere need to stand up and discipline children while they are young. If you wait till they are 18, it will be much too late!
Excellent article. Arresting 6-year-olds is the height of absurdity, and it shows just how depraved and dangerous the governments of this country and their enforcers have gotten. Welcome to the police state -- literally.
Wow, how ridiculous has our country gotten? We deal with kids' unruly behavior by doping them up with Riddlin and shipping them off to jail. Not even a teemager and already a record. They're still learning their boundaries at this age.
I'm not a huge child lover. I adore dogs. I can go without babysitting for the rest of my life. But there's no way in the world even the baddest 6-year-old would get arrested, and I just shake it off. That's insane. I don't care what the child did. You don't arrest a child. That child is still in the learning phase. Maybe the child had a good reason for throwing a tantrum. Situations like this are reasons that kids become so introverted and when a serious situation really does happen, they're scared to speak up for fear of punishment. I get so pissed off when I hear about parents who spank their children for wetting the bed. That will make a child terrified of their own bodily functions. There are a world of other issues. But anyway, none of this stuff merits arresting children.
I remember when this story came out. Completely crazy! Thanks for bringing it to more people's attention.
can we say too far!!!!
What bothers me was that this was not an isolated incident in the town. And that there was no big public uproar about the issue. Paris Hilton going to jail dominates the headlines with much debate about her, but no one seems to care about a frightened little girl becoming a felon. Society does not seem to have it's priorities straight.
Great article. I remember hearing about this story. I think its ridiculous that she was arrested, let alone charged with a felony. Children will act out, not only when they want attention, but when they are afraid, confused, or frustrated. Parents have to discipline children and try to raise them not to behave this way. I feel that some kids need stricter discipline or punishments at HOME. However, some of the BEST parents have children that unfortunately still may display behavior problems. And in some cases (such as mine), the child acts out because of a disability that people may not even recognize. My 8-year-old autistic son often has tantrums when he is frustrated. He doesn't "look" autistic, so people who don't know about the autism may think he is just an out of control child, and even if they are told, they sometimes don't understand the disorder and why he does what he does. Parenting any child is not easy, and throwing them in jail over tantrums at 6 is not the answer. If its
These kinds of things are happening more and more because people are not using laws for the reasons that they were intended. Great article and ridiculous judgement of the part of grown ups.
Great article. Well written. I believe the teachers, and the principal could have handled this little six year old child. The mother should have been called. I was outraged when I first saw this story on the news. Something could have happened to frighten this little child. Something could have happened that frustrated Desre. Nobody knows what kind of day the child had. Problem children are not to be handled by handcuffs, and charged with a felon. If this is commom practice in any state, something is wrong with our society. In my opinion the way little Desre was treated is child abuse. I have calmed down lots of little children that came to my house to play, that threw bad temper tantrum. Some of these children were much older than this little child. She is not much more than a baby. One child threw a chair in my room, because another boy took is chanmce on the play station. He was really upset. I was able to calm him down. I set the game rules to make sure every one got their
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