6 yr old boy commited to psych ward

[Bramble]

http://moms.today.com/_news/2011/02/...shes?gt1=43001

Because he drew a 'violent' picture in class. They refused to let the mother call the kids therapist and called an ambulance to haul him off. He was locked up for 48 hours before they let him go. Now he's scared to go back to his school. Can you blame him?

[Andara Bledin]

I think the first comment pretty much sums up my thoughts.

^-.-^

[Lace Neil Singer]

Jeez. 0.0 Good thing those people weren't around when I was at school; a lot of my pictures involved blood, ghosts and skeletons cuz I was fascinated with ghost stories. I used to draw the headless horseman a lot, for example. I think the idiots who locked up the child should be in the psych ward, not the six year old.

[Rapscallion]

In my teenage years, a classmate was cheerfully illustrating the gorier bits of the Iliad.

Actually, come to think of it he's an undertaker last I heard.

Rapscallion

[Cheshire]

Zero tolerance brings along zero common sense.

One part of the article made me draw my brow: "Mental health professionals have the power to put any child in a 72-hour psych hold, without the parents' permission, if they think it's necessary."

I wonder if that is ever brought up when parents sign their children into these "schools". Can't imagine a single sane parent agreeing on that transfer of power...

Locking children in a room for a good 7-8 hours a day while the sun is shining bright outside...already horrid enough, yet this child's father left to war. You would think they'd have more sympathy towards that.

[Rageaholic]

Like most zero tolerance nonsense, this is wallbangerific. The kid already has anxiety problems so lets worsen it by sending him to a psych ward. And I don't care what contract the mother signed, that's wrong. If the kid is required by law to attend school, they should be more respectful of his rights.

I can understand being concerned and maybe giving him some school counseling, but they take it too far by sending him to a psych ward. Overkill much?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I drew violent pictures myself as a kid, and I turned out okay. Generally.

My parents got concerned about one picture in particular, but didn't do anything about it. It wasn't necessary.

Zero tolerance=zero sense at all. You gotta love the mob mentality that brings these kinds of policies about.

[Ginger Tea]

When I was in my first or second year of Secondary school I had to visit a child shrink cos I was quiet in class, erm I wanted to learn not fuck about through out class, you think thats odd, well now adays it is.

I was asked to draw a picture of my family, so I drew a cut away of my house with me and my brother playing in the living room, mum cooking food and dad comming in from walking the dogs, pillock interpreted it as an abusive household with me and my brother keeping dad and the scary dogs away from mum, BULLSHIT.
The dogs were lovely and only ever got violent when both had a litter of puppies and one headed to the wrong nipple, but that was a spat between mother and daughter over sister/brother/grand daughter/son and not against said puppy, brother got them apart after nearly loosing a finger, has a permanant scar in his nail.
Mum was a better cook than dad.
We played in the living room, the only lie was Dad taking the dogs out as we normally did it as a group activity, we would keep the dogs chasing balls whilst they headed over the feild to the sainsburys near by.

The next thing he had me do was imagine what was drawn on a blank piece of paper, I had an alien being booked at the front desk of an intergalactic police station, well it was my imagination and that popped into my head.

And all this because I wasn't disruptive in class.

[Dreamstalker]

Jeez. 0.0 Good thing those people weren't around when I was at school; a lot of my pictures involved blood, ghosts and skeletons cuz I was fascinated with ghost stories.

Same here; in addition I would draw some pretty detailed (well, for a kid) military scenes. Come to think of it...that's a reason given for why I got put on $antidepressant-that-should-NEVER-be-prescribed-for-children. "Violent drawings" and a damn good imagination for a public-school ward.

One of the discussion tangents in a law class of mine deals with links between drawings/paintings/writing and an actual criminal act...the consensus seems to be that unless a solid connection can be proven then there is no basis for any conviction.

Don't schools have the ability to act in place of a parent (in loco parentis)? I always wondered how much sense that made, especially with today's zero-tolerance bullshit going on.

[Andara Bledin]

I guess it's a good thing I was heavily romantic when I was in school, because these days, my writing tends to be heavily death-centric or sometimes a bit tortured-soul-ish.

In case anyone missed it, they took a kid that was suffering from separation anxiety and took him away from his mother.

^-.-^

[Eisa]

They're fucking idiots. It would be one thing if his mother didn't give a shit and he didn't have a therapist. But he did. So they took a suffering child and made him worse.

If I were him, I wouldn't even go back to that school.

[Sleepwalker]

Rather missing the part where he said he wanted to die. Hmm.

[macphile]

I didn't draw violent pictures, but I stared out the window and was just generally weird and unsocial (still am!). My mother eventually had me evaluated and held me back a grade. Nowadays, I'd have probably been pumped full of drugs from age of 5.

[Lace Neil Singer]

That's a natural thing for a kid to say. -.- Come on, who here hasn't said, "I wish I was dead!" when being yelled at by parents, falling over and getting laughed at, or any of the other trivial details in a child's life that loom very large? Or, on the other hand, telling parents, friends etc that you wish they were dead.

[MaggieTheCat]

I'm betting the whole rule that allows the school to put students in a psych ward is in place is mostly there for older kids, like teenagers who're depressed in high school. That I can understand. But a six year old saying he wants to die...he probably doesn't even really understand death at that age.

How many six year olds commit suicide? Not a rhetorical question, if someone knows, I'd be interested in knowing.