My 7 year old suspened for "sexual harassment"

Originally posted by mtnshredder
OH JEEEEEEEZ, that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard a school do. A kid can't even be a kid anymore for christ sakes. He was doing something very polite and is now getting punished for it, WTH? I'm amazed at the incompetent morons that get hired to teach our kids now days. Seems like every month you hear of some idiot having sex with the kids that they teach or stupid crap like this. Our educational system in general has become a joke.

Ok lets pretend for just a bit.
Lets pretend that you are wearing basketball shorts, white socks and white sneakers. One of your socks is falling down. I go up to you, bend down and pull your sock up. How do you feel about that ? Pretty simple. Did I invade your privacy ? Did I touch you without your premission ? Was it ok for me to pull up your sock ?
Would you, in telling your friends about what I did, say, this lady was doing something very polite, she was being helpful to me. I doubt it.

Originally posted by TKDRL
reply to post by karen61057

 

Actually, I apologize for that remark. It was rude and unfounded, bad mood today, not right to take it out on you like that. Seriously, not being sarcastic or anything like that, I apologize.

Peace.

reply to post by karen61057


Again, you are trying to bring adult deduction, into a situation with children. Children do not think and analyze the way adults do, they do not have years of experience in the real world the way we do. They do not think far ahead as to consequences the way we do. They do not yet know how to put themselves in other's shoes and empathize the way we do.

Originally posted by brettrix
If he is telling the truth, call a policeman and ask them what the law for indecent exposure is and then present those charges to the girls parents... I would also talk to the policeman and explain what happened and see if he would meet you at the principles office with your kid.. so that your kid could explain what happened in front of the policeman and the principle.

Maybe you could suggest in front of the principle that you are considering pressing charges against the girl for indecent exposure... but that an apology and a full reinstatement would suffice.

Also - send your story to the local papers, to the drudgereport.com and all the other conservative websites - like biggovernment.com or glenn beck... make a stink with them and see what happens...

of course, you need to trust your son on what happened.... and talk to the teachers of course.

Heres the thing about indecent exposure laws. Even if you see someone standing buck naked on a street corner. You cannot go up and put clothes on them. You still are not premitted to touch them in any way shape or form. You can only call the police and have them deal with the issue.
So if the kid thought this little girl was indecently exposing herself to him. (highly unlikely) he still didnt hold any cards allowing him to pull her pants up or touch her in any way.
Stop tying to justify this. Call Glen Beck indeed.

Originally posted by TKDRL
reply to post by karen61057

 

Again, you are trying to bring adult deduction, into a situation with children. Children do not think and analyze the way adults do, they do not have years of experience in the real world the way we do. They do not think far ahead as to consequences the way we do. They do not yet know how to put themselves in other's shoes and empathize the way we do.

Actually in my sceanaio both people are thinking adults. I am not trying to rationalize what the kid did. I know kids dont think things through like that.
Empathy has been observed in children as young as two, dont know where that comes into the argument.

reply to post by TKDRL


I'm sorry, this fly keeps buzzing around my head annoying me.

reply to post by karen61057


What is the relevance then, that makes it even worse.
How an adult would act or feel is way different than how a kid acts and feels. It isn't fair for us to expect kids to act or think the way adults to, and to hold them to adult standards. It must really suck to be a kid these days, I remember when I was a kid, we were allowed to be kids. Adults had some common sense and didin't expect us to know everything, they taught us right and wrong as the situations came up. You pull sally's pigtail at 7 years old these days, you get charged with assault and battery..... In my days, we had to go sit on the bench for recess, after an adult explained why it was wrong.

Originally posted by strangedays

Originally posted by conspiracy nut
reply to post by coop039

 

i hate to dwell on the subject but didnt your son tell you who the girl was? have you seen the kids in his class? have you ever seen any kids with their pants falling down or was this an isolated incident? well hopefully your son learned a lesson that in no way should he have pulled her pants up for her, its just not appropriate. if he had a problem he could have told the girl or the teachers that he felt it was offensive. i am sure you are glad the stupid charge of sexual harassment which was totally overboard in my opinion, was reduced. you guys can now get over it and move on.

Sounds to me like OP has been excluded from info she should be privy to. Everyone reading this knows the girls parents know exactly who her boy is and she is just being kept out of the loop. It was probaqbly a conscious game to get the OP to freak out unnecissarily.

OP tell your kid to get verbal to defend himself as opposed to physical things (like grabbing the girls pants). They hate it when the kids do that as there is no reprimand for words/concepts a child does not understand. It will also help him to build confidence among that specific set of peer and possibly take his alpha position.

Actually, if you read my other replies, the girls parents were not told who did it.

Originally posted by conspiracy nut
reply to post by strangedays

 

i'm sorry i hate to play devils advocate, i'm just sayin i know parents can go into protective momma/poppa bear mode when these things happen and its very easy to believe your son/daughters version of events. i have a son and if this sort of thing happens i will be sure to look at it from all the different sides and as bad as it sounds i will not so quick to defend or believe what my son tells me 100% i was a kid once too and i know how one can pull the wool over ones eyes. i always said that the sexual harassment charge was way out of line, but that doesent change the fact that kids need to learn to keep their hands to themselves. i have a cynical personality and i am a firm believer in the there are 3 sides to every story. my story, your story and the real story.

Yea totally can see that. "My kid can do no bad" type of thinking. Its a fine line, its just as a people we have to speak up to make sure stuff doesnt get out of hand. Otherwise the system starts to make criminals out of innocent people (it already does-I mean the rate goes up). Part of me almost wants to witness how far it can go just for comical/cynical purposes. Im truly curious as to how far people will go as far as what they accept. Its funny and sad, but im more interested in the psychology and background of the people that end up doing the most provocative things I guess.

Originally posted by TKDRL
reply to post by karen61057

 

Blah blah blah, an adult, trying to put themself in the shoes of a kid, and think they would react the same as they would now. Kids don't think like adults, and I feel sorry for you if you do not know that. With your years of experience in the world, you know it. A 7 year old does not.

edit on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:26:54 -0500 by TKDRL because: (no reason given)

Part of it comes down to letting the child make the mistake and learning from it. He definetly wont be doing that again IMO. The problem is the way its dealt with-so extreme and emotionally impacting to the OPs fam (im sure its caused a few nights of heartburn and maybe a fight or two among the parents). This is going to teach the child to go in a certain direction. The child will see the overbearing use of BS on the mom/dad, learn the behavior and the behavior will transcend into aspects of the kids future life (maybe not manifesting itself in extreme ways). I could see this "learned behavior" teaching the boy to gray area many things in his life-loyalty to a wife, relationships with people in general/teach him not to trust early, and those are just hypothetical examples. But I guess what im trying to illustrate is the negativity it breeds. And it can be avoided but they intentionally do it. Its perplexing.

Originally posted by coop039

Originally posted by strangedays

Originally posted by conspiracy nut
reply to post by coop039

 

i hate to dwell on the subject but didnt your son tell you who the girl was? have you seen the kids in his class? have you ever seen any kids with their pants falling down or was this an isolated incident? well hopefully your son learned a lesson that in no way should he have pulled her pants up for her, its just not appropriate. if he had a problem he could have told the girl or the teachers that he felt it was offensive. i am sure you are glad the stupid charge of sexual harassment which was totally overboard in my opinion, was reduced. you guys can now get over it and move on.

Sounds to me like OP has been excluded from info she should be privy to. Everyone reading this knows the girls parents know exactly who her boy is and she is just being kept out of the loop. It was probaqbly a conscious game to get the OP to freak out unnecissarily.

OP tell your kid to get verbal to defend himself as opposed to physical things (like grabbing the girls pants). They hate it when the kids do that as there is no reprimand for words/concepts a child does not understand. It will also help him to build confidence among that specific set of peer and possibly take his alpha position.

Actually, if you read my other replies, the girls parents were not told who did it.

I know. Im saying thats what they TOLD YOU. They already know who your kid is. Im not trying to make you paranoid, dont sweat if they know you so what f em. But you cant say that the girl is not going to point the boy out to the parents. They are involved in the childs life and are going to ask. The first thing id ask my kid is "which kid was it?". But I just hope its over and done with. Im not saying go looking for a fight or justice, but just remember how things were handled so next time you know what to expect.

EDIT: like the confucious (sp) thing: take the loss but dont lose the lesson (I think?)

reply to post by coop039


He had no business touching that girl.

He is right where he needs to be - held accountable for his actions.

Originally posted by karen61057

Lets not make excuses for the kid. If I saw a kid with her panties showing I would descretely tell her to pull her pants up.

Did you even know how to do anything discretely as a kid?

Did you even know what discreet was?

You are applying an adults perspective and rational to a 7 year old.

You do know there is a difference right?

Did the kid do something wrong? Yes.

The most the punishment should have been is loosing the longest recess 1 or 2 days in a row.

Anything beyond that and a 7 year old doesn't actually have the capacity to understand why they are being punished so long.

It's the same reason you can't punish a dog for something they did more than 24 hours prior.

Their minds just don't understand/work the way ours does.

Can kids be trained and punished, yes.

It needs to be done in a way they can understand and in a way that they will actually learn from what happened.

You may also have to repeat the lesson several more times.

That's what makes 0 tolerance so ridiculous for children.

It takes time and repetition for them to learn.

I love how today's parents want their snowflakes excused for every negative behavior.

There are a LOT of bad parents out there.

No wonder the country is going to hell.

Originally posted by rtyfx
reply to post by coop039

 

He had no business touching that girl.

He is right where he needs to be - held accountable for his actions.

You do know he is 7 right?

Punishing a 7 year old for that duration stops being productive.

Yes children need discipline and order, but at some point the punishment stops being helpful.

A 5 day suspension isn't helpful, he won't grasp the meaning of action to consequence properly.

I'm all for accountability I think the majority of this nation lacks it, but kids don't think the way we do.

Their minds drift, they can't connect an action to a consequence if the consequence is beyond the scope of their understanding.

One week is forever to a kid and therefore beyond the scope of their understanding.

reply to post by Pigraphia


Too bad, so sad.

Suck it up, buttercup.

We aren't going to tolerate inappropriate touching.

coop039, glad the school backed off the ridiculous charge. I still think that the suspension was way out of proportion; what will that school district do when faced with serious actions of older students, like fighting or drugs? Sorry you also were threatened with DFS. If the principal had to sign off on the referral, then there lies a problem he needs to address with his staff.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


That was not a legal reply. It was a common sense, personal responsibility, take charge course of action. When I grew up, the saying was "don't make a mountain out of a molehill".

In this (or similar) case, parent goes into principal's office and requests to see if there was any documentation to warrant "harassment". And I do agree with you, that if there had been other instances of similar behavior, the parent's question is, "Why was I not informed, so I could correct the behavior?"

Seven years old is the age to understand right from wrong. However, children (and some adults!) are still learning appropriate social behavior. In the American culture, it is inappropriate to pull up someone else's pants because their butt crack is showing. If that was allowed, then many a male plumber or mechanic would have found my hand yanking up his pants.

continuing on...I am shocked at how many were quick to dismiss the boy's actions as innocent per reason of age, yet few came to the defense of the girl. She was portrayed too often as close to being a slut, just asking for it. Apparently, few have observed how young children's' butts can be exposed innocently at play, often due to ill fitting clothing on little bodies. Maybe your own butt was exposed at play as a seven year old but no one cared. OTOH if a child's parents dress the child inappropriately for school, then it is up to an adult at the school to inform the parents, to avoid embarrassment to the child.

Childhood is usually portrayed as a time of innocence and fun, which it can be, but, if we were all to write our memoirs truthfully, much anguish would be in the mix. The job of parenting has its great times, too, but guiding and helping our children to learn how to navigate well through Life is a tough, 24/7 job.

One last thing, the OP was able to take care of business w/o throwing money at a lawyer. "Lawyering up" is one thing if you've been charged with a crime, but too many times a lawyer is not necessary. Learn your own rights/pay for advice only and fight your battle/negotiate first. Exhaust your plan, before hiring a lawyer exhausts your finances.

Why did this kid do this?

Because his parents didn't teach him at a young age that you don't touch people who aren't your family.

Piss poor parenting.

reply to post by desert


Let's make no mistakes about this. Bad legal advice should never ever be equated with common sense. It is not at all common sense to unduly assume your own child is guiltier of more than he or she has been accused of, and only to do so in order to grant school administrators a benefit of a doubt that you wouldn't even grant your own child.

Let's also be perfectly clear here in what should have been done regarding this incident but was not at all done, and that is the teacher using the incident as a "teaching moment" where the teacher has the entire class discuss the incident and it is explained calmly, rationally, and on a level that seven year old children can understand that what this little boy did was inappropriate, insensitive, and without regard for the little girls circumstances. Such an effort would have been far more valuable to all the children than how the incident was ultimately handled.

Indeed, what I just illustrated only demonstrates how grossly incompetent the teacher and school administrators of this school are.

Finally, let me be clear on yet another point. I have never, nor would I ever, advice anyone to "lawyer up" regarding this kind of incident. I would just never ever advise someone to assume their own child was probably guiltier of far more than he had been accused of and give this advise in order to defend a grossly incompetent educational system, nor would I advise someone to obtain a lawyer just because their son had been suspended. I would, however, most certainly advise such a parent to proceed with caution regarding the incident and to protect their own child as best they can.

Yeah, that's it. Blame it on the system.

The system dealt with it. That's what's chapping everybody's ***.

Boys shouldn't be touching girls and vice versa. Period.

There is a time and a place and it sure as hell isn't grade school.