Girl, 5, Forced To Apologize For Hugging Classmate

[the Juggernaut]

What the hell is wrong with our country!?! Are you kidding me? A hug is now an offense in kidnergarden? What the hell is wrong with these people? Are they high? Doing crack? What!?!?!?!:banghead: This just blows me away blows me away. I would be so pissed off if I was that girls parents even more pissed off than I am now.

*sorry I just had to use the emoticons for this.
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Girl, 5, Forced To Apologize For Hugging Classmate
Parents Looking For New School For Girl
POSTED: 6:02 pm EDT April 5, 2006
UPDATED: 7:59 pm EDT April 5, 2006

MAYNARD, Mass. -- A family in Maynard is outraged after their 5-year-old daughter was forced to write a letter denouncing hugging after a classmate embraced her.

NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported that Brenda Brier and Michael Marino pulled their daughter, Savannah, out of school early Wednesday. The couple was angry after a meeting with officials at the Greenmeadow Elementary School in Maynard, where Savannah is in kindergarten.

At issue is a hug Savannah said she got on the playground from a friend named Sophie. Savannah hugged Sophie back. The hugs resulted in Savannah having to write a letter, complete with teacher corrections, that read, "I touch Sophie because she touch me and I didn't like it because she was hugging me. I didn't like when she hugged me."

"She said, 'I'm really sad that I got in trouble for hugging,'" Brier said.


"I can understand if boys are playing rough or kids are pulling each other around -- that's one thing. But when kids are being affectionate, I mean hugging, hey, they shouldn't be disciplined over it and they shouldn't be lying in letters making the kid say the opposite that they don't like to hug," Marino said.

School Superintendent Mark Masterson told NewsCenter 5 there was a "dispute of the facts between a hug and a lifting of a child off the floor." The superintendent said the school reported "one girl bear hugged another girl and lifted her off the ground. The aide who was monitoring told the teacher. The teacher asked several students to write a note to their parents and describe what happened."

Savannah said she did not lift her classmate off the ground.

"They're trying to accuse her now, basically," Brier said.

Savannah's parents said it should have never gone this far, and want an apology from the school. The family said they are so upset they'll start looking for a new school for their daughter to attend.

Copyright 2006 by . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/8491575/detail.html

 

[Shield529]

They did that to my kid and I would snap like a dry twig. It would have to be the scorched earth approch, sue everyone and every thing for distress and put my face all over the news.
This is the official end of childhood in what once was the USA.

 

[Zedicus]

Whisky Tango Foxtrot???

 

[Don Gwinn]

The apology letter reads as if there was more to it than a hug. One of the most common problems with kids that age is that they often turn appropriate contact (like a friendly hug) into inappropriate contact (like picking someone up, shaking her, hitting, etc.) My boys are 9, but emotionally, closer to 3-5, and this is a constant concern.

Parents trying to claim that "the school" is punishing their child "just for hugging" would be nothing new.

No way to know from that article, really, but it's a long way from certain that the teacher did anything wrong. I suppose you could assume that the teacher must have forced the child to write a fake apology, but what is the evidence for that?

For that matter, what reason does the teacher have to try to prevent friendly hugs between friends on the playground?

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

Ah yes! The politics of political correctness trickling down to our 5 year olds


If it truly was a mere hug, then that kid should be taught that hugging in school isn't appropriate (in our society,and due to our society). But it shouldn't be presented as a highly negative activity. Beyond that, that's it. As for apologies and other nonsense...what can I say? Our country is getting

 

[Snake Eyes]

Look, I'm absolutely, positively the last person to be a board Nazi.......but.....

Does this have anything to do with guns?

Or civil rights?

Could we move this over to APS?

Please?

Thanks.

 

[the Juggernaut]

Don wth is wrong with you? Even if she did pick the other girl up in a hug it didn't sound like the other girl cared or was upset about it at all.

 

[Don Gwinn]

Allow me to illustrate further:

A couple of weeks ago, I got a phone message from my son's principal stating that my son had spent half a day in in-school suspension for "pointing his finger at another boy and pretending to shoot a gun."

When I spoke to the principal, I told her that I didn't understand why such a thing would be punished by a suspension, but that I would speak to my son. It helped that I've never known Donovan's teacher, who witnessed the incident and took him to the office, to be given to hysteria.

Well, when I spoke to Donovan, a different picture emerged. Donovan and his brother have lived through some severe abuse and neglect, and in many ways they are far behind emotionally, although cognitively Donovan is above average. Donovan told me honestly what happened.

He wasn't playing a game, and it wasn't a friendly joke. When he was on his way into the class, a boy pushed him. Donovan told him to stop. The boy pushed him again, so Donovan made the finger-gun and told him "Bang, you're DEAD."

The first time I asked, Donovan told me he was playing. The second time I asked, he admitted that he was threatening to shoot this boy. Was the principal wrong to make him sit in a quiet room by himself for half a day over that?

Now, imagine that all you knew was what I wrote in the first two sentences of this post. Would you really have been able to decide who was right and who was wrong in that situation?

(Before anyone asks, every gun I own is locked up tight either in my safe or in the fast-access safe next to the bed. With the counseling we're doing now, I believe both boys can come around and grow up to be good men someday--but I'm taking no chances today.)

 

[Don Gwinn]

Juggernaut, you have no idea what the little girl thought at the time. You didn't see what happened. The teacher did.

You don't know that she was "forced to write a letter denouncing hugging" as stated in the article, either--you know that she used the word "hug" in the letter she wrote. Maybe she used it because the Evil Teacher Conspiracy forced her to write a letter against hugging, or maybe she didn't want to write about what she really did--or genuinely believed she was just giving her friend a hug. You and I don't know. This is a favorite game of children--"I didn't hit him, I shoved him." "I didn't shove him, I pushed him." "I didn't hit him, I smacked him." "Hitting is when you use your fist." It goes on and on and on.

Even if you take this news article as gospel (and I thought we all knew better than that!) it doesn't say a single thing about "the other girl's" reaction--that would be "Sophie." Unless you are personally involved in this case, how did you deduce that "Sophie" wasn't upset? Even if she wasn't, that doesn't make it appropriate. I've pulled kids apart who were merrily doing anything from bear-hug grappling to judo-style throwing, mutual spankings . . . . you name it, and often each protested that as long as the other guy didn't mind, I shouldn't, either.
If you went to school, you already know how well that excuse works.


"The parents say it should never have gone this far."

Gone what far? The kid had to write a note apologizing for her actions. If that's tyranny, these people need refresher training.

 

[AStone]

Does this have anything to do with guns?

Hate to be a wet blanket, but I guess I've got to agree.

I've been part of several interesting THR discussions that had little or nothing to do with guns that got locked.

I don't see the firearm or firearm related issue here.

APS.

 

[the Juggernaut]

Did I mention the teacher had a concealed weapon?

 

[THE DRILL INSTRUCTOR]

Before I got out of my high school, the principal (A literal lesbian liberal) tried to ban 'displaying personal affection' on the grounds that a parent wrote an anonymous letter claiming they were disgusted by the high school students making out in the halls. Well, needless to say I became rather mad because I had never seen this stuff happen. They banned any touching between students, and you know how touchy-feely high school students are.

I promply interrogated the principal and read the letter, which I am sure she wrote herself to support her decision. After some arguing my sister and I got the ban lifted, and I still suspect she only put it there because she is heterophobic.

Us poor sheeple, controlled by the whims of these in power, be they principals or polititians.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Juggernaut, you have no idea what the little girl thought at the time. You didn't see what happened. The teacher did.

Actually, Don the teacher did NOT see what happened either. According to the article, a teacher's aide saw the "event" and reported it to the teacher. God only knows how accurately or inaccurately he/she reported and/or interprested what he/she saw.

Gotta love it, though. Anyone notice that the apology letter used the 'T' word ("touch")? Lemme see, 5 years old would be kindergarten, and they're already perverting kids being kids into some kind of sexual thing. I'd be upset, too, if it was my kid. Heck, I am upset, and it isn't my kid.

 

[torpid]

When hugs are outlawed, only outlaws will give hugs.

They can stop my hugs when they close my cold, dead, open arms.

.

 

[wingman]

QUOTE]The first time I asked, Donovan told me he was playing. The second time I asked, he admitted that he was threatening to shoot this boy. Was the principal wrong to make him sit in a quiet room by himself for half a day over that?
[/QUOTE]

Don not unusual for a boys of this age, I was raised in the 40's, 50's we did a lot of finger pointing (cowboys)and never considered shooting anyone although we carried 22's after school age 9 up. Side note, if you query a child twice exactly the same question he will offer you the story he assumes you desire to hear because he/she wishes to please you.

In my opinion schools/teachers over react to almost all minor problems.................fear of not being PC.

 

[longeyes]

One more symptom of a society slowly going mad.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

One more symptom of a society slowly going mad.

I question your conclusion.

But I'm not sure if I should question "slowly," or if I should question the use of "going" as opposed to "gone."

 

[c_yeager]

Sorry, I am not prepared to take the word of a 5-year old child and her obviously hysterical parents over those of the witnesses and teachers, at least not on this one.

The worst thing you can do for a kid is to overreact right along with them. Make *damn* sure you have the facts before you validate their behavior. If this child is making allowances for herself, a perfectly natural behavior for a child, and her parents are validating it, then then lesson she learns is that its OK.

 

[Cosmoline]

 

[iapetus]

If it truly was a mere hug, then that kid should be taught that hugging in school isn't appropriate (in our society,and due to our society).

What is inappropriate about two 5-year-old girls hugging in school?

 

[Lon371]

My only question is "WHY IS THIS EVEN IN THE NEWS?" The Congress wont pass ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT LAWS, and 5 year old hugging or deal is headlined?
This should have been dealt with between the school and parents. If dealt with at all. In our little whole in the wall school out here deep in the woods. It is kept local, as in parents and school officials (and student gossip of course) The poitical correctness needs to be done in the upper level of pollitcs, before it infest the rest of the country. Oh thats right they start the crap and make the rules. They are not effected by them.:banghead:

 

[f4t9r]

I need a HUG !!!!!

 

[Art Eatman]

Dunno how I missed seeing this OT jobberdo...

Art