Cuffing Our Kids

There’s a current video playing on the news and talk shows depicting a little 8 year old Kentucky boy being handcuffed in his elementary classroom. Well, more like upper arm cuffed, and behind his back! It seems this sort of police response has been occurring on a repeated basis for years in this country.

Cuffing our kids.

In the case of the previously described little fella, he has been diagnosed ADHD, and has historically had difficulty responding favorably to his teacher’s directions, and, admittedly, has been a behavioral problem in the classroom.

But handcuffs?

I was surprised to learn that almost 200 young students in this country were cuffed by resources officers in the past year. Granted, if a teenager, (or child for that matter) brings an M-16 to school, and begins to shoot up his classroom, well, that’s “a big duh.” You cuff ‘em, (or God forbid, you do something worse if they can’t be detained to be cuffed). I mean, at this point it has become a public safety concern.

However, cuffing 8 and 10 year olds for talking back to the teacher, or coloring a brown bear purple is ridiculous.

As a counselor I all too well understand the psychological damage cuffing an all but innocent little child can do to his or her psyche, and the lingering trauma which is likely to be revisited on him or her during the course of their lives.

Let’s quit cuffing our kids!

 

By William McDonald, PhD. "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 4