"Melt down"? Is that your euphemism for assault?
Does it matter if they smack the teacher or aide or if it's another student?
They shouldn't be striking anyone. Neither the teacher/teacher's aid nor the student signed on to be physically assaulted at school.
What about when the child has a melt down at home and strikes a parent? Same thing? Arrest/jail, right? Because clearly it's exactly the same as if a 40 year old strikes a 45 year old.
You must live in a very nice world, Toni. I worked with a woman who had her 12 year old step daughter institutionalized because she was violent to them and was starting to beat her infant sister. The child's instability was a result of fetal alcohol syndrome.
And lastly, what should happen to a teacher who strikes a student? Arrest and jail, right?
Punches a kid for no reason? Absolutely. They're mentally unstable and need to be locked up.
That is what you were trying to do, right? Pretend the teacher's suffering wasn't important? That what she felt and experienced doesn't count?
Not at all. What should happen is actions that are developmentally appropriate and within scale (temporal as well as in keeping with the actual damage and potential for damage) to the event.
"Scale"? OK, that's called trivializing someone else's problems. They're on a sliding scale with you. Sorry, they don't agree with your standards.
The teacher pressed charges. Obviously he didn't just slap her hand.
No, it's not at all obvious. I'm not a teacher but I spent years in all kinds of classrooms. There is a tremendous variety in tolerance, attitude, aptitude, and skill set among teachers for dealing with all kinds of classroom situations. Some teachers are on the low end of the spectrum in terms of being able to diffuse situations that might escalate from barely on the register to something major; some teachers actively--and I mean ACTIVELY--seek to escalate conflict, to provoke conflict, to provoke violence.
Teachers are fully human. Students are fully human. All are flawed. Teachers are supposedly adults who are well educated and who are well trained. And who should know how to control their own behaviors and how to elicit good behavior from their students. Who are children and learning self control.
Working with children with developmental or behavioral issues? Multiply that times 10. At least. On a good day.
So, you must have seen children attack teachers right? You've seen so much? My mother did. She worked in a grade school. She saw kids going after teachers and male principals with kicks to the groin and bites.
But I'm sure you've seen that too with all your experience.
And there are all levels of autism and yes, some of them the kids are violent. One of my bosses treats autistic spectrum children.
There is no such thing as a 'violent level of autism.' Good for your boss. How many kids did she have arrested in the past academic year? How old is the youngest kid she sent off in handcuffs?
My mistake. I put the wrong word there. There, fixed it.. I said 'treats'. She's a doctor.
Yeah, you managed to not answer a single question.
Should a pre-schooler who slaps or kicks a teacher be arrested and taken to jail in hand cuffs?
What if it's her parents?
I live in the same world you do. Finally had to be much more explicit than I liked about why my kid would never, ever, ever be allowed to go home to play with the kid who kept asking, although they would be welcome at our house any time (with millions of qualms about that frankly. The 'father' was that bad.)
I live in a world where my kids and kids I worked with have parents who have been convicted murderers, thieves, drug users, drug dealers, rapists, domestic abusers, child abusers and more. When I lived in fear that the 'father' who had been recently released from prison where he served a too short sentence for raping his wife/mother of my kid's classmate would show up at school and open fire, as he threatened to do. Oh, after a few days, he was arrested and jailed again, but in the meantime. My kid was in first grade. Oh, and my other kid: one of his classmates was orphaned when her father murdered her mother in front of the police officers who had escorted her to their home so that she could remove some belongings because she had taken the kids and fled for safety. The father killed himself in jail.
I live in a world where my friend saw the 18 month old in the house across the street bounced off of walls--literally, bounced off of walls---and the police refused to take action. No surprise that this kid had major anger issues in kindergarten. And was in a program for mentally disturbed GRADESCHOOLERS by 4th grade. Which made me really shudder to think what happened in the home of a different kid whose stepfather was arrested for malicious endangerment of a child. A couple of years later, this same kid made credible--and I mean very credible--threats to murder my kid. Who was 12 and under 5 ft tall, maybe 80 lbs. Went to court for that. FF a few years and he did some serious time for attempted murder. The really sad thing? He was smart--very! and handsome and an extremely talented athlete. Who could not overcome the abuse at home. I think eventually, he has done better. He's out of prison, now, I think. More than one of my kids' classmates ended up in prison for violent crimes, themselves. A few of them had hung out at my house on multiple occasions.
My kid was threatened with being killed, set on fire, someone tried to drown him at school and I lost track of the times someone tried to push him into oncoming traffic. I had a kid (not mine) crying at my table because a teacher had dumped a waste can over the head of another kid in class--school claimed it didn't happen, but enough kids who were in that class, with enough other stories made it very credible. Didn't tell his own parents because, well, they were likely not sober enough or were in bed with someone or another. But he told me and the school refused to acknowledge that anything happened. Same teacher had a bad enough reputation for long enough that the MOTHERS of kids my kids' age warned us new to town mothers to never allow our daughters to be alone with the teacher. Oh, he was allowed to teach until he decided to retire. Teacher who refused to allow my kid to pass down the hallway to his next class so he could hear her tell me that he was disorganized. She knocked his books and papers out of his arms and then said: See! Happens all the time. Who knew nothing--and I mean nothing--about the science curriculum she was supposedly teaching in 6th grade. The teachers who taught classes or 'taught classes' drunk. Who insulted and ridiculed students for an assortment of reasons. Or 'reasons.' Meaning no reason is good enough to treat a student that way. None of which the schools would acknowledge happened, much less address.
My kids had the advantage of having parents who are well educated and who were willing and able to spend time at schools, advocating for schools, for ALL kids, for being present. So, relatively speaking, they got the best from teachers. Not many of the kids they went to school with had that.
Don't get me wrong: I have a lot of teachers in my family. And some of the very best people I know in the world have been my kids' teachers. Almost entirely, the issues any of my kids came from other kids, usually with parents with some pretty questionable life skills, parenting skills and compromised sobriety and massive anger issues. But never, not once, not even the kid who threatened (credibly) to set my kid on fire or the other kid who threatened (credibly) to kill my kid--or the kid who tried to drown--and I mean: drown! my kid--never did I advocate for them to be arrested and taken to jail. Not once. And none of these were autistic kids, who really need specially trained teachers and staff.