I'm all for getting today's children to be more respectful of their elders, especially when it comes to their educators. As both a mom and journalist, I've seen my share of rudeness and disrespect at the schoolhouse and I've never understood when we thought teaching our kids manners was no longer necessary. And so, I have no issue with disciplining children for being insolent and rude at school, but "the punishment has to fit the crime." Handcuffing an 11-year-old child for being "argumentative and extremely rude," then, is completely out of line.
Well, that's exactly what happened recently to Yajira Quezada, a sixth-grader at a public school in Colorado, for not following the assistant's principal orders. Is this for real?
Yes, it is. And the worst part is that the sheriff's office and the school district have said they've done nothing wrong! Just following standard procedures.
Here's how it went down according to the incident report: Yajira was found walking down the hallway during lunch because she claimed she was called and wanted to get a sweater from her locker. As the assistant principal was talking to her, she walked away saying 'I don't have time for this.' When the school's counselor intervened, Yajira continued being argumentative and disrespectful. So she ended up in handcuffs, was put in the school resource officer's patrol car and taken to a juvenile holding facility.
Yajira's mom was understandably furious. I would be too. While the mom knows her daughter's behavior was unacceptable, she didn't think it merited being handcuffed, as she told the local NBC station, 9News. She promptly withdrew both her daughter's from the school, but wants to make sure other parents know what's going on in our schools.
"They're treating them like criminals. And they're not, they're kids," Mireya Gaytan told 9News after sharing photos of her the marks the handcuffs left on her daughter's arms.
There's no mention of whether this was a first time incident or if Yajira had had discipline issues in the past, although Yajira did say 'I'm not the type of girl to be arrested'. Either way, seems to me like this was completely blow out of proportion.
Again, I'm all for disciplining kids, but from what we know, I fail to see how handcuffing an 11-year-old is anything but abusive and completely unnecessary. If schools can't control a rude sixth-grader any other way than with handcuffs, then we're in worse trouble than I thought!
What do you think about this incident? What would've been a better way to discipline Yajira?
Image via 9news.com
