Posted on 04/16/2016 8:39:33 AM PDT by TaxPayer2000
A startling video shows a 5-year-old boy getting paddled by his school principal in front of his mom.
Shana Marie Perez, who recorded the footage of her son's punishment, says she's had a long-running dispute with the school principal in Georgia. Her son has had 18 unexcused absences this school year and she was once arrested for his truancy.
She says the school threatened to call the police and have her arrested again if she did not give them permission to paddle Thomas.
She told IE: "I felt like I had no other option. The principal led me to believe that the paddle was the only option."
Perez said her son was "devastated about the whole situation."
"Every time I try to walk up to him he says 'don't hit me, don't hit me,'" she added.
The local sheriff says the school did nothing wrong because paddling is legal in Georgia as long as the parent gives their consent.
The disturbing video is re-igniting an old debate: is paddling really an effective way to punish a child this young?
Read: Teacher Arrested After Video Allegedly Caught Her Slapping Student in Class
Psychiatrist Dr. Gail Saltz told IE: "There is really no data to say that corporal punishment effects positive change."
She added: "When you take a kid that is already being oppositional and defiant, now you have taught him that another method of coping is to hit. Chances are you are going to get a child that is going to hit."
The school district says they are investigating the incident and their discipline policies
Nothing takes the place of good parenting. We bot took an active interest in our children’s schooling, and we came up against some real POS’s as teachers and we dealt personally with each of them with their administrators. Maybe others have had a different experience, but providing a loving home, with the both of us there to make sure our kids behaved, but were treated respectfully by their teachers meant that we never had to use corporal discipline with any of them. Same system works with pets too!
My dad said the same thing.
You were lucky; the principal at my elementary school was a friend of my dad, so there was no way he wouldn’t find out.
no thx....today's teachers do not have the best interest of our children like the old teachers did..the old teachers you never questioned them because they still believed teaching was a vocation...
But she did agree, she signed the permission paper. If she really opposed their policy, she should have taken her dear child elsewhere for his education. Maybe if she had paddle his behind herself and took him to school, the school wouldn't need to paddle him.
missing school when you're 5yro is not the kids fault...
I suspect he's got attention disorder...
this is not the worse of the worst but I still don't like it...
If she signed a paper that specifically says she will allow corporal punishment by school officials while not under threat or duress (as she claims), then she doesn’t have a valid claim.
It remains to be seen whether she can prove duress and/or threats by the school.
Lemme guess. They’re Amish.
In junior high, my stepmother taught at the same school. It was like getting a report card every day.
They had paddling there. It was done out in the hallway, while classes were in session. It was good and loud. The student who got it usually just came back in afterward looking really embarrassed.
It was really, really easy to avoid being paddled, you had to go pretty far over the line to get it.
Hi pajama boy.
You forgot which forum you are posting on.
She signed a permission slip.
From looking at her Facebook it looks like she has five kids but not a dad.
He has been regularly assaulting other children.
Yeah.
The kid did assault and batter the other children.
Then he spat on the teacher.
That is how he earned the well deserved spanking.
If the mother determined that a punishment was just, she should have told the kid to stand still and take it like a big boy. Instead, she filmed the tantrum. Probably had facebook stardom in mind. That part is working out for her, for now.
If the punishment was not just, the article says she has a right to deny it. But she herself was truant so many times, she is letting her son take the fall for her.
The article never says what the child did to deserve the punishment. I sincerely hope it was not for being late or absent, over which the child has no control. Nor does he seem to be getting much support at home in terms of correct behavior.
This mother needs court-ordered parenting classes — as if the state could actually give any effective education. Churches really, really need to address the cultural shortfall caused by unmarrieds raising children, and children being raised by media.
Mom Fail
Mom needs paddled til she gets her act together.
“Absence of spanking in childhood leads to batons, tazers, and guns in adulthood.”
AMEN! Could not be stated more concisely.
KMA
Parenting seems to be a serious issue in this family. I would not want to be the teacher of that child.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.