Bad Grandparenting
 

Story from Florida about an 8 yr old who punched his teacher, and his grandmother's lame, enabling response to the incident

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24295658/

I suspect the problem is the grandmom's lack of discipline, rather than the teacher's attempts at it.

Not that the schools are any better at limit setting that modern parents.

or, the problem could have its roots in whatever domestic situation made the grandma the caregiver. Things like that can create a lot of anger in a child and, let's face it, there are few accepted avenues of expressing that anger in our society.

Yes, avoid it. If it comes up and trips you, though, you can't avoid it.

Avoid violent contact is a very strange order.

Sorry to not be all warm and fuzzy about lil Deshawn, but that doesn't mean the teacher should be his means of expressing anger

of course not. I'm just reluctant to make judgments based on a small news blurb when not all the facts are known. And, I have an 8-y.o. grandson who is faced with a difficult domestic situation, and I worry about him.

I totally understand Cloud, I have an almost 8 yr old who blows her top sometimes. I'm just saying, from someone who has worked at schools for several years now, that school staff work really hard, and for their sakes, as well as the other kids in that classroom, he shouldn't be in there, and be allowed to act that way.

Most kids reach a point in their life, when they have to be made to understand what the limits of expressing their displeasure are.

The older they are when this occurs, the sounder the beating must be.

I don't interpret her response as lame and enabling. I read it as the grandmother saying this was an incident waiting to happen which could have been avoided if they removed the boy from the classroom earlier, and regretting that she had not spoken up.

Her statement was proceeded, in the article, with..It sounds like the reporter that interviewed the Grandmother, rightly or wrongly, felt she was saying the teacher wasn't competent. We don't know because we didn't hear the conversation or witness her demeanor.

could well be that the teacher was incompetent. But incompetence alone does not lead to violence.

I think the Judge is also at fault here.
The boy has behavioural problems, but almost any condition can be improved if not managed by consistently applied discipline. Which is not a teacher's primary function. It needs to be applied at home, and then the school made aware of any specific issues.

And am I the only person who wondered what the heck an 8 year old was doing with crayons in the classroom? I seem to remember leaving those behind at 5-6.

This is America. I still use crayons.

The AK-47s had not yet arrived from the dealer. They had to do something!