Father questions punishment for game of tag

WTNH Television ^ | 4/2/2004 | Puppage

[Puppage]

(Ansonia-AP, Apr. 2, 2004 1:15 PM) _ The father of a nine-year-old Ansonia boy is questioning his son's three-day school suspension from school.

Jason Pardy says the suspension for inappropriate touching was too harsh. He says his son accidentally brushed a girl's backside during a game of tag.

However, school officials say the incident was thoroughly investigated and the penalty fits the offense.

Pardy says his son, a third-grader, was playing tag with a girl last Friday when he accidentally grazed her buttocks with his hand while tagging her. The girl later told teachers the boy had grabbed her backside.

Pardy says the incident is "overblown" and was a simple misunderstanding.

[farmfriend]

The problem is not what you think it is. Seems simple to you but it's not.

My son, 13 and in 7th grade, was suspended for wearing a stretchy book cover on his head and saying it was girls underwear. There was a goup of girls that had targeted him to get him kicked out of school. They admitted this in front of witnesses. The vice pricipal, a feminazi, refused to investigate the girls though she had been told about it. The district person I talked to, a male, said the punishment my son recieved was appropriate and that my son was the problem and would have problems at the new school I was sending him to. I had to pull my son out of the special program for smart kids and put him in regular school to avoid the harrassment he was receiving at this school.

The happy ending: My son has had no further problems as he was really not the problem in the first place. He has been vindicated as the kids from the old school who now attend the same high school as him have admitted they were wrong and he was mistreated. Small consolation. He has received a valuable lesson on the stupidity of beauracacy though.

[N8VTXNinWV]

Oh good Lord.... He was probably leaning forward chasing her and was aiming for her back, tripped and it hit a little lower.

Shez...ping for boys alert...

[Not A Snowbird]

Geez you aren't kidding! My son is in 1st grade and has already had a girl call our house. They constantly attack him on the playground.

I have a going-on-15 stepdaughter, and I am appalled at how sexually aggressive girls her age are, her included. If we can get her out of high school without date rape or pregnancy it will be a hugh accomplishment.

[FourPeas]

overly sexualized

AND

She's in third grade and she already knows this is how the big girls play the game.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, DING! We HAVE a winner.

[EuroFrog]

Thank God I can afford to homeschool mine.

[marlon]

Oh I don't think the problem is simple at all I was being facitious. The problem is near epidemic. The bureaucrat weenies can't think for themselves so they institute zero tolerence rules. So if you're an 8 yr old and you mistakingly touch someones rear end you are as guilty as a 17 yr old raping someone in a stairwell. Likewise if your an 8 yr old and you draw a picture of a soldier holding a rifle you are as guilty as the Columbine mass murderers.

Even scarier is I may be charitable when I assign the problem to simple minded bureaucrats. I think more oten than not they are agenda driven tyrants.

[Truth29]

Unfortunately that is not complete vindication unless the girls were officially sanctioned for lying. They should have been suspended at least. Otherwise, they are walking around, admitting getting him kicked out and not learning that their actions have adverse personal consequences.

[zook]

bump

[bearkat]

"If we can get her out of high school without date rape or pregnancy it will be a hugh accomplishment."

Your statement says a lot about the state of our Country. I have a friend who said the exact same thing about her daughters. One is 15 and now pregnant and her sister is 8. Not a great example from "big sis". The 8 year old whispers when she talks about her sister; it seems that even she is embarrassed.

Boys just can't play tag with girls anymore. I'm going home to tell my son to stay away from girls :) They just get you in trouble.

[fella]

"Sure hope that boy didn't catch no cooties."

[Littlejon]

Geez! When I "accidently" grabbed some girl's posterior while playing "tag", worst thing I got was a slap on the face! :)

Seriously, my wife is a teacher and HATES the zero tolerance rules. A lot of the stuff that goes on in her classes (6th grade) that might be deemed "innappropriate" by some knee-jerk administrator get's an "act your age" response from her or some other form of "punishment", more times than not to embarass them a little. Nothing over the top, just a good humored way to show these kids how stupid they are acting. Of course, I fear some kid will have something innocent happen to them and she will poo-poo it and we'll get sued by some over-zealous parent, but she doesn't seem too afraid at this point.

That is not to say things are markedly different from when I was in middle school, because it most certainly is. She also has her fair share of incidents where she immediately sends the kid to the principal, but a lot of the adolescent stuff her kids do that we used to do at their age is, by in large, kept in her classroom and dealt with by her. The kids respect her more than any other teacher on her hall, BTW.

Not to be overlooked in all of this is teachers who were taught that "ALL" instances should be treated as serious and dealt with by administrators. A lot of teachers don't want to deal with kids in general (which makes me question why they want to teach in the first place) and just send the kid to the principal so they won't have to deal with them. Basically, they are lazy. My wife, fortunately, can and does think on her own, so she deals with a lot of this stuff on her own.

[kjam22]

The problem is that our "society" is trying to control behavior without controlling stimulus. A system where "free speech" originally ment to mean the ability to question government officials, now means people get to pound hours and hours of filfth into the heads of young people while contending that it is parents responsibility to protect the kids from the filfth. Then society tries to stop kids from acting on what they have seen hours of by threatening or acting upon a 3 day suspension..... which the parents (who weren't able to protect the kids from the filfth in to begin with) now object to.

[bearkat]

I'm not sure anyone can really control "stimulus". It's part of the growing up process to just LEARN how to control your behavior, regardless of the stimulus. Men and women don't suddenly disappear once a person gets married. One has to control themselves and stay faithful... If I'm trying to lose weight, I stop eating the Krispy Kreme's happily provided by the boss every Friday.

This incident happened to 3rd graders playing tag... it was probably an accident and hardly calls for a 3 day suspension. This kid won't even want to pass a note to a girl now for fear of accidentally brushing her hand with his finger.

[kjam22]

It may have been an accident, and may not have. By and large you do agree that we're in a society with increased teen pregnancy, and teen crimes than when you and I were kids.

You and I are old enough and mature enough but more than that we were raised in an era of responsibility so that we know how to avoid Krispy Kreme's. But what if we were raised in a society where from our earliest memories everyone that was portrayed to us as "cool" ate Krispy Kreme's all of the time. If every single televison show had people eating Krispy Kreme's. If the games and the music were all explicit about how to eat Krispy Kreme's, if all of the commercials had inuendo's about Krispy Kreme's..... I mean if you were raised in a society that was in many ways centered upon Krispy Kreme's, do you think it would be more difficult for you to avoid them now? And how difficult would it have been to avoid them at age 11 or 12?

[ladylib]

Actually, they should be sued in court for defamation of character.

[bearkat]

Believe it or not, I've lost 40 pounds so far and counting. I'm 20 pounds from my goal weight. I didn't have self control for a long time. My self control has evolved from bad experiences that I learned from (luckily).

I'm hoping that my son has a better start in life than I did. Society has gotten progressively worse... I certainly do agree. I'm just afraid that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction and we've missed the happy medium : ) Now we're paranoid.... zero tolerance. High school honor students being suspended for having a kitchen knife in the back of a truck that fell out of a moving box from Grandma's house. An isolated incident blown WAY out of proportion. What a great kid to have helped his grandmother move...

I am certain that with people like us raising the next generation, things will improve. I have to believe that :)

[judgeandjury]

The girl decided she could get get some mileage out of filing a sex harassment suit.

The problem with most sexual harassment policies is that, in many cases, infractions that are cited under these policies have nothing to do with harassment. My dictionary defines harassment as "the act of tormenting by continued persistent attacks and criticism". In my opinion, a boy brushing his hand against a girl's butt one time does not constitute harassment in any sense of the word.

[Truth29]

"Actually, they should be sued in court for defamation of character."

We are running a thread within a thread here, but I agree with you.

[FITZ]

It may have been an accident, and may not have.

Back in the days when our society was smarter there were separate playgrounds for boys and girls ---- boys by their nature play rougher and games like tag can obviously involve touching --- this stuff is totally asinine ---- I know someone whose son in the 6th grade got accused of sexual harassment for giving a girl a "wedgie" on the playground --- the boys were giving each other wedgies and she happened to be there with them so got one too.

[FITZ]

I always thought you shouldn't over-react too much if you find young children playing "doctor" which would be much more like sexual harassment than a game of tag ever could be.