How to Deal With Out of Control Children

Host: Headlines, front page I believe it was in one of the papers in New York. Boy, I think five years old, handcuffed in school, out of control. I said, wait a minute, it's a five year old, handcuffed. The story is he disturbed whatever the supervising Principal was for Pre-K, whoever was getting out of control, and instead of the security maybe restraining him, as gentle as they can; it might be difficult getting help, they handcuffed the kid. Does that make sense? Guest: No, I can't see a five year old -- Host: You know the story I am talking about? Guest: Yes, I can't see a five year old being that big, that strong, and becoming that far out of control that two adults couldn't get him under control without handcuffing him. Host: And the first thing I would do is I would call the people, how should we initially handle this kid? If he has issues, then as soon as I get the kid a little bit controlled, I would get all parties involved; including the parents. Guest: School based support team. Host: Support team, and make a game plan, and I would never have handcuffed a kid, because it traumatizes the kid. Look, there could be some justification, I don't know, I can't conceive of any. Many times kids get out of control, I never hit my kids. Maybe I should have, I don't know, but I never did it. But the point is it bothers me. In the worst part, it's headlines in one of the local newspapers; really good for the New York City image that we handcuff five year olds in school when they get out of control or whatever it was. Do you ever see a kid -- and you are in school, you get some very intelligent kids and you get some rough kids, because it's a mix. Have you ever heard of kids in school getting handcuffed in high school? Guest: Yes. Host: What did they do to get handcuffed? Guest: If they bring a weapon in and they have a fight. The police will be called and they will be taken out in handcuffs. Intruders -- Host: The police, the local security, the police, but the school -- Guest: What we call the security guards in school, not properly the SSOs, they are now under the auspices of the NYPD. Host: So if you had a kid who was five years old, out of control, and you were a teacher. You would call security. You expect them to do what with the kid; restrain the kid with handcuffs, or restrain the kid as gentle as possible, if it's a five year old kid? Guest: I would expect them not to use handcuffs. If the kid was out of control, I would expect them to be removed from the classroom. The parents should be called immediately, school psychologist should be notified. Host: So a team. Guest: A team, a school base support team, plus the parents. Host: You would interview the parents at a later date to see if the kid had some medical condition. Guest: Right. Host: Okay. Also you would check anything that triggered off the event. Sometimes kids lose it, and maybe we could find out why, reacting to the effect and that's the cause. Guest: Right. Historically go back to last year's teachers, you would -- what developments were doing on there with the students, the last year's teachers. Host: So there must be a lot of pressure in teachers today, you have a kid in the class. Guest: There is. Host: They are very sensitized that you are bad and everybody else is good and teachers are always worried about that. They always blame the teacher for something. Guest: The teacher is always on the bottom of the totem pole. A student has to take care of themselves. If the teacher has five classes and 140 students, the teacher has to look after 140 people a day, 140 different personalities. Host: But this was very disturbing. I have never heard this in my life. Yet I can imagine, there are kids are on medicine, they get some kind of fit because of medicine. We have doctors prescribing maybe too much medicines for kids today, and some of them can have some opposite effects on some situations. Guest: That should all become part of the investigation, what medicines are given. Host: So the best treatment for a problem is to find things to prevent subsequent problems, learn from it, is that true? Guest: Yes. Host: Thats a part of the educational system, you learn and you improve. Guest: It's a learning experience. Host: So in other words, we hope we don't see more headlines like this, is that true? Guest: We hope not. I don't think any school wants to be in the newspaper for that. Host: Only want to know if the kid has got good scores. Guest: Yeah.