Feb
2010
Six-Year-Old Girl Handcuffed And Sent To Mental Institution For Tantrums
It seems that handcuffing school children has become the new favorite method for getting problems under control.
Haley Shalansky, a six-year-old first grader in Port St. Lucie, Fla. was handcuffed at Parkway Elementary on Fed. 3rd after throwing a tantrum. Because she only weight 37 lbs, both of her wrists were put into the same cuff, causing bruising. According to a report on WPBF, the following day the girl threw another tantrum and reportedly hit the school principal who is eight months pregnant. At that point the young girl was removed from school and taken to New Horizons mental health facility to be committed.
Reading over the two sides of the story, they differ greatly, but I think the only thing they do agree on is that the girl does have behavioral issues. That being said, she needed to be handcuffed? She needed to be “committed”? They couldn’t have called her parents and simply told them to pick her up? The school says that they have attempted multiple times to arrange meetings with the parents regarding Hayley’s behavior, but the parents have failed to show up for any of them. Okay, fine, problem there, but that doesn’t excuse the seeming extreme measures the school took in the situations.
According to TCPalm, the parents, Kathy Franklin and Mickey Shalansky, have a history of problems with the school district, and were even arrested last year for failure to appear in truancy court when a nine-year-old daughter missed 17 days of school without doctor’s notes. It doesn’t sound like these two are going to win any parenting awards, I get that, but simply going by the facts, the school and authorities mis-handled this situation.
The sheriff’s department claims that they handcuffed the girl to keep her from harming herself, but that still doesn’t seem like something that falls under their purview. Why wasn’t child protective services called? You leap immediately from tantrums to a mental institution?
I called my 89-year-old grandmother who is a retired school teacher. She taught in inner city Phoenix and her class was made up exclusively of the students the school felt were “lost causes”, she dealt with weapons, tantrums and every other scenario you can think of under the sun, and even she thought this situation was handled incorrectly. Her biggest issue was the handcuffing of the girl, “Her fight-or-flight instinct would have kicked in and she would have ended up harming herself even worse due to just her instincts taking over.” I asked her if she would have ever had a child handcuffed for throwing a tantrum to which she replied, “Sean, I didn’t have them handcuffed for weapons, tantrums you just ignore.”
My grandmother is what you call “a tough cookie.”
This is the second case of a student being handcuffed in as many weeks. The other case happened in Queens, NY where Alexa Gonzalez was taken away in handcuffs for doodling on a desk in erasable marker. What is happening in our public schools? When did handcuffing a student become a common practice for situations that would have previously called for detentions or just speaking to a mental health worker? By today’s standards I’m not sure what would have happened to me in school. I was well-known to school officials for my lack of respect and desire to question their authority. True, I never threw things or damaged school property, but I probably would have been hauled off in handcuffs at some point.
Have schools lost so much control that they now have to rule by intimidation and fear of retribution? Something is wrong in our schools, folks, and it isn’t the kids.
Thanks to Jo from Jo’s Cafe for bringing this story to my attention.
Guest | February 17th, 2010 at 7:58 am #
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0…
NOW try to tell us if she needed to be handcuffed.
Linda | February 18th, 2010 at 3:27 am #
There are gentle, compassionate, sensible ways of dealing with children having temper tantrums. But you'd have to actually care about the child to want to do that. All the schools care about is dominating the children. Furthermore, when a child that age has a tantrum, there is invariably a cause. It could be tiredness, hunger, low blood sugar, feeling threatened, an abusive home situation, anger at not being listened to at all and a sense of profound injustice, a learning or developmental disability, etc. A 6 year old child does not have to be committed to a mental institution for a trained educator or psychologist to start investigating what the problem is, and work with her individually! But I guess good school psychologists are no longer in the school budgets. Why hire staff to help the children when you can just have the police haul them away?
Oh – and I notice no one thought to ask what the pregnant (perhaps overly hormonal, quick to lose her temper, or just plain mean?) principal said or did that sparked the girl's tantrum.
Branka Radosavljevic | February 26th, 2010 at 5:11 am #
I just think that this world is not normal anymore. Teachers, Principal, Police and a tiny little girl ????? And they couldnt calm her down. Oh, my God, she was only 16 kg, and they are just a bunch of liars. If they do that to my daughter my husband and I would be really mad and we will do the same to them. And thats would be very bad for them, crazy people. They should look more for our children, not only send them to principal when they overreact and call police. O my God, O my, way we pay them, to torture our kids??? They are the problem ones, and ofcourse the stupid and liar police officers. I hope we do can do something so this NEVER happends again. I live in Swirzerland, and here are also strict rules but not brutal, but this could never happed. Principal had hormone probles and she was nervos because od that. Normal woman take last 4 monts for her and baby, apparently she is crazy one. I just hope that poor girl will be fine,forget this as bad dream and have luck in this crazy world.
PaperMoon | March 14th, 2010 at 12:23 am #
Wow that is crazy! I can see why some are upset over the handcuffing, if this was a one time thing where the kid had an off day then I would say that was extreme but from what I read, the kid has a history of doing this all the time and the parents cannot be reached and never come to talk with the school or anything. I don't like how the kid kicked a pregnant woman, that's endangering another child, and she knew what she was doing that's why she aimed for the stomach, that kid does sound like she's totally out of control. No matter how small she is, I know how even little kids gone wild can do a LOT of damage.
PaperMoon | March 14th, 2010 at 12:24 am #
Other than handcuffing her they would have had to sit on her or hold her down physically, then people will be complaining about them showing too much agression to the kid, so I guess handcuffs were the only choice, you can't tase her or sit on her and you can't let her destroy everything and kick pregnant women, and throw stuff and break things. The parents need to get that kid some help because that is not acceptable behaviour from a kid, no way. They never used to handcuff kids in school in the past, but in the past kids were not that crazy like they are today. The whole story is sad, and I feel sorry for the kid, but the parents need to get that kid some help and it's the parent's fault for not trying to work with the school.
Josh Strike | May 13th, 2010 at 12:36 am #
Public schools exist to prepare the lower and middle-class children of this country to become obedient slaves.
This particular outrage is only moderately more offensive than the normal level of coercion and indoctrination that takes place every day in our nazi youth schools.
If you love your children and care about their future; if you want them to grow up to be free-thinking individuals capable of making complicated decisions, surviving and successfully navigating the coming world of boot-licking zombies who will try to undermine them at every turn, then take the time and effort to home school your kids and keep them away from the factory death farm. Only the very few who are able to think quickly, decisively, and totally outside the box are going to see whatever's coming for our country early enough to escape it.
Lori Pierce | May 19th, 2010 at 2:24 am #
I know it sounds crazy to put a young child and hand cuffs. As a teacher, I would think that would only be used in the most extreme cases (a child bringing a knife to school and threatening to hurt someone). I do not agree with what happened in this situation. The child should have been suspended for the remainder of the year. Some responsibility lies with the parents & their lack of parenting skills. If you have not visited a public school recently, I encourage you to go and volunteer. You will be amazed at the lack of social skills and respect for authority. Teachers deal with children who come from very loving families that do every thing correctly. They read to their child, they spend time with their child, they teach them how to interact with others.
Lori Pierce | May 19th, 2010 at 2:24 am #
Then, there is the flip side. We also have some children who have been left to fend for themselves. Nobody has ever read them a bedtime story, fixed them dinner on a regular basis, or simply told them they loved them. The child may be acting out from neglect or abuse or both. The problem is that it is not just one or two children in the classroom like this. It is on average 1/3 of the classroom that has these types of problems. Please, before you jump to the conclusion that teachers do not care, know that the majority (not all) do. We arrive early to tend to the children who parents drop off before school hours and leave unattended. We feed the students whose parents will not put money in their lunch account. We find coats for children who come to school in the winter in short sleeves. We spend more on school supplies for your child than you will ever know. I encourage you to visit and volunteer wherever you see a need.
Kessbot | December 14th, 2010 at 1:41 pm #
The kid has some deadbeat parents. She had no sensible role models in her life – which continues when the adults at the school she attends call the cops on her.
She needs to be talked to like an adult, go through some children's therapy, and NOT treated like a criminal. The moment you put handcuffs on someone so young you are confirming what they already believe about themselves – that they are worthless and have nothing to lose.