Six year-old taken from school to psych ward

Mental health professionals do thing other than stignatise and doom people, sometimes they even... assist them with their mental health. It has been recently recognised that young children can in fact be suicidal. Not knowing the full facts what if the child expressed a wish to kill himself at the very next opportunity? Under that circumstance the school is legally obligated to act in his best interests as the entity that is in loco parentis...

Not knowing the full facts it could go either way.

I remember the last outrage party about the autistic child apparently being convicted of terroristic threats. Turns out the facts reported were mostly wrong and the mother was the only source of information and a questionable one at that. The kid never even saw a cop and was not being charged with anything but infraction of school rules, despite drowing a picture where he killed a named teacher. I don't remember any media source running a correction.

When we lived in AZ, our son and several other kids were mercilessly tormented by a little psychopath who had a habit of threatening to stab kids if they didn't do what he wanted. He had been suspended, expelled, readmitted, suspended, expelled, readmitted, etc. etc. His mother is a crackhead whose idea of childcare was to park the kid in front of the TV, hand him the X-box and let him play what the hell he liked.

It's a huge pity that none of the staff in that particular school had the balls to do what this teacher did. I know that, one day, I'll look at the local paper for that town and read about that kid running amok with a knife.

I am not sure how I feel about this situation because I don't have all the facts. I want to know if he has shown any signs in the past of being a danger to himself or to others. Someone mentioned the fact that he was seeing a therapist and was suicidal before this. Excuse me, but where in that article does it say the kid had been suicidal, or had tried to take his own life? It doesn't. And just because a child says something about death or dying, does not mean he is suicidal. That is the age that children often become preoccupied with death, and are just learning what it means. If a 6-year old truly wants to die, then yes, it needs to be addressed, because that is not normal, and either something truly horrible is happening in his life (like abuse) or he has severe mental issues.

But none of that is ever mentioned. He has seen a therapist. That is not uncommon for a child of a soldier. In fact, the military has specially trained therapists that deal with children of deployed soldiers, and they encourage ALL children of deployed soldiers to see this therapist. How do I know that? My husband was in the army. A friend of mine's husband still is, and their 8 year old was seeing a therapist while he was in Afganistan. The mother said he has seperation anxiety only, which is very common in this situation.

As far as the picture, and the words, it most likely is the result of the video game. Now I personally wouldn't allow my 6 year old to play a violent video game where he kills people. But at the same time, drawing these pictures or talking about death doesn't mean there is definitely a problem. My 7 year old daughter talks about death. Have you ever watched a Disney movie? There is often an evil person that tries to hurt/kill the hero and heroine, but they will kill the evil person at the end. My daughter will cheer them on. Does that mean she should go to a psych ward, because she wants this evil cartoon character to die?

Most likely, this whole thing was blown out of proportion. If the kid had a history of trying to kill himself, hurting himself with a weapon, hurting others, or things like that, I would agree with the schools assessment. But if this was a one time thing, and normally he is a happy, healthy little boy, than this was probably more traumatizing than helpful.

veinglory said:

Mental health professionals do thing other than stignatise and doom people, sometimes they even... assist them with their mental health. It has been recently recognised that young children can in fact be suicidal. Not knowing the full facts what if the child expressed a wish to kill himself at the very next opportunity? Under that circumstance the school is legally obligated to act in his best interests as the entity that is in loco parentis...

Not knowing the full facts it could go either way.

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The problem with this theory is that children aren't miniature adults. They don't even understand death is permanent at six-years-old. A child of six is more likely to do something self-harmful that an adult with better impulse control would think through. A six year old still seeks almost immediate self gratification, because his brain hasn't developed sufficiently to process actions and consequences. If you were talking about a teenager, finding out if there is an immediate plan etc. would usually work, but not with a six year old.

Satori1977 said:

Most likely, this whole thing was blown out of proportion. If the kid had a history of trying to kill himself, hurting himself with a weapon, hurting others, or things like that, I would agree with the schools assessment. But if this was a one time thing, and normally he is a happy, healthy little boy, than this was probably more traumatizing than helpful.

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You can't always tell with little kids. The 8 yo who laid down in the middle of the busy road has presented as healthy and happy to the school, but she had issues at home and the incident happened at home. I believe the memory of laying on that street with cars whizzing by is more traumatizing than if she had been hospitalized to prevent getting to that point.

If it were just drawing pictures, I'd say they'd over-reacted. But this little boy apparently said he wanted to die. As a parent, and as someone who's suffered with depression, I say let the mother scream (at the press) all she wants. That little guy needed help and he obviously wasn't getting it. If the school had ignored it and he'd deliberately run in front of a car... yeah, guess what Mommy Dearest would be screaming then.

There's not enough information for anyone uninvolved to say if what happened was really warranted. Some children are miniature adults, but most are not. This kid is an individual and statistics are meaningless when discussing an individual. Yes, in many instances a teacher might have more contact with a student than a parent, but the teacher is not family. Chronically abused and stressed children often learn to alter their behavior when in public and a teacher might not be seeing the full spectrum of behavior and certainly may not understand fully what is happening at home or a babysitters etc. This could easily have been an overreaction that will haunt the kid because as has been said above, an involuntary psych admission will go on the kid's permanent record. If it was truly warranted, then it was the right thing to do. Having had kids and seen what goes on at the school level, my gut says that it probably could have been handled better. A simpler solution without the permanent record could have been suspension until cleared by a psych evaluation. That would have satisfied the kid's needs without the scarlet letter.

GeorgeK said:

There's not enough information for anyone uninvolved to say if what happened was really warranted. Some children are miniature adults, but most are not.

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I would say that no six-year-old is a miniature adult.

Yes, in many instances a teacher might have more contact with a student than a parent, but the teacher is not family. Chronically abused and stressed children often learn to alter their behavior when in public and a teacher might not be seeing the full spectrum of behavior and certainly may not understand fully what is happening at home or a babysitters etc.

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If the teacher is seeing a child act depressive, stressed, and otherwise in need of help, I think that's significant. Yes, chronically abused children learn to act different in public than at home, and there could be abuse the teacher's not seeing...but that doesn't mean she should ignore what she IS seeing. And what she saw was a child saying they wanted to die.

Having had kids and seen what goes on at the school level, my gut says that it probably could have been handled better. A simpler solution without the permanent record could have been suspension until cleared by a psych evaluation. That would have satisfied the kid's needs without the scarlet letter.

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What you generally don't see, unless you actually work at the school, is how combative many of these parents are--especially the parents of the kids who have problems. We don't know the whole story, here, but if the mom was part of the problem--and MY gut says she was--then sending the kid home with her and not letting him come back to school until he'd had a psych eval could have caused much more problem than calling for a psych eval on the spot.

Also, whether the school calls in a psych eval or the parent does, the end result would likely have been the same. They evaluated him, found him suicidal, and took him into temporary protective custody.


Like I said before, I seriously doubt that no child in this school has ever drawn a violent picture before. I seriously doubt that a child without other serious symptoms would have actually been ADMITTED to a psychiatric care facility over a drawing. There's more to this story.

Monkey said:

I would say that no six-year-old is a miniature adult.

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Just because you haven't met one does not mean that they do not exist. I've met a few during my days of doing pediatric surgery. They are very rare, but they do exist.

Monkey said:

If the teacher is seeing a child act depressive, stressed, and otherwise in need of help, I think that's significant. Yes, chronically abused children learn to act different in public than at home, and there could be abuse the teacher's not seeing...but that doesn't mean she should ignore what she IS seeing. And what she saw was a child saying they wanted to die.

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When did I ever suggest that it should be ignored?

Monkey said:

What you generally don't see, unless you actually work at the school, is how combative many of these parents are--especially the parents of the kids who have problems. We don't know the whole story, here, but if the mom was part of the problem--and MY gut says she was--then sending the kid home with her and not letting him come back to school until he'd had a psych eval could have caused much more problem than calling for a psych eval on the spot.

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Possibly, but you don't necessarily need an involuntary psych admission to have an evaluation.

Monkey said:

Also, whether the school calls in a psych eval or the parent does, the end result would likely have been the same. They evaluated him, found him suicidal, and took him into temporary protective custody.

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Except that if childrens' services bring a kid in and not the family, it is a foregone conclusion that there will be an involuntary admission for psych eval.

Monkey said:

Like I said before, I seriously doubt that no child in this school has ever drawn a violent picture before. I seriously doubt that a child without other serious symptoms would have actually been ADMITTED to a psychiatric care facility over a drawing.

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I've seen it.

Monkey said:

There's more to this story.

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Definitely

Ol' Fashioned Girl said:

And I can hear the outrage when, in ten years or so, a similar young man who wasn't evaluated and never got any help walks into his school and opens fire on his classmates. When people are interviewed, more than one says, "He used to draw such horrible pictures and say he wanted to die! There's always been something just 'wrong' with that boy... why didn't anyone DO anything about it?"

The tragedy here is the media, the release of private information and parents who don't do their jobs.

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^ QFT


Would it be less outrageous if the kid went home and hung himself instead? They didn't lobotomize the kid. They kept him for observation and it sounds like he needed it. There are all kinds of other clues and behaviors that teachers and therapists could have observed that we are not privy to. We shouldn't be privy to any of this information. The bottom line is that school and health systems are charged with doing what is considered safest for the child. That's what they did. If they had any suspicion at all that this child might be an immediate threat to himself, they had no choice but to act.

GeorgeK said:

Just because you haven't met one does not mean that they do not exist. I've met a few during my days of doing pediatric surgery. They are very rare, but they do exist.

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Sorry, but I don't buy it. Kids can be extremely adult--in certain situations, in certain areas. But they don't have the context, the life experience, the maturity, the brain development, or a hundred other little tools that adults have at their disposal.

People used to say my 16-year-old son was SO mature. They used to swear he was an adult in everything but years. But they didn't see him in his "off" moments, didn't get to hear him whine about how we were out of sandwich meat and he just couldn't actually cook anything, didn't understand just how childish he could be.

He was perfectly adult. At times. In certain situations.

Possibly, but you don't necessarily need an involuntary psych admission to have an evaluation.

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No, the article said the kid had an eval, after which, they decided to bring him in.

Except that if childrens' services bring a kid in and not the family, it is a foregone conclusion that there will be an involuntary admission for psych eval.

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This wasn't CPS. It was a school. And the mother was present.

Monkey said:

Sorry, but I don't buy it. Kids can be extremely adult--in certain situations, in certain areas. But they don't have the context, the life experience, the maturity, the brain development, or a hundred other little tools that adults have at their disposal.

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There're a lot of adults who lack the same. You don't believe me, that's fine.

Monkey said:

No, the article said the kid had an eval, after which, they decided to bring him in.

This wasn't CPS. It was a school. And the mother was present.

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I'm pretty sure that it's only involuntary if the admission papers are signed by someone other than the patient or legal guardian. If mom signed the papers, it's voluntary, and unless I misread the article it said involuntary which has a very very different legal meaning.

Mom was present, but she didn't agree with the school or the evaluation team.

That's when it was taken out of her hands.

Hence, involuntary.

That brings up a question to which I don't have any experience. Who pays the bill for an involuntary psych admission?

GeorgeK said:

That brings up a question to which I don't have any experience. Who pays the bill for an involuntary psych admission?

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The person or person responsible for the person committed or their insurance if it's covered.

Whatever we each may think about whether the child needed help or not, I think the situation was handled poorly. Speaking as someone who has had mental health issues for most of her life (not so bad I couldn't hide the worst of it and just appear to be an "odd kid"), I avoided seeking any help for my problems for years precisely because I was afraid something like this would happen.

It didn't help that all the school, college and uni counsellors had a strict rule of not "if you pose a serious risk to yourself (suicide) or others we will...", but instead one that encompassed everything from alcohol abuse to self harm. When you fall under the category that does one of those things, doesn't want loved ones to know and doesn't want/think they should be put away, it tends to make you avoid seeking help.

What they could and should have done is made the mother aware of their concerns and said "we are about to call in some people to assess him, could you get here soon". At least then the mum could have been spoken to about it by the teachers before she found out he was being taken away - then both she and teachers could have provided a much calmer and less distressing atmosphere for the child.

BunnyMaz said:

What they could and should have done is made the mother aware of their concerns and said "we are about to call in some people to assess him, could you get here soon". At least then the mum could have been spoken to about it by the teachers before she found out he was being taken away - then both she and teachers could have provided a much calmer and less distressing atmosphere for the child.

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How do you know that's not exactly what happened?

So far, one of the points of agreement seems to be that the mother was called, and was present before the child was admitted to a care facility.

BunnyMaz said:

Whatever we each may think about whether the child needed help or not, I think the situation was handled poorly. Speaking as someone who has had mental health issues for most of her life (not so bad I couldn't hide the worst of it and just appear to be an "odd kid"), I avoided seeking any help for my problems for years precisely because I was afraid something like this would happen.

It didn't help that all the school, college and uni counsellors had a strict rule of not "if you pose a serious risk to yourself (suicide) or others we will...", but instead one that encompassed everything from alcohol abuse to self harm. When you fall under the category that does one of those things, doesn't want loved ones to know and doesn't want/think they should be put away, it tends to make you avoid seeking help.

What they could and should have done is made the mother aware of their concerns and said "we are about to call in some people to assess him, could you get here soon". At least then the mum could have been spoken to about it by the teachers before she found out he was being taken away - then both she and teachers could have provided a much calmer and less distressing atmosphere for the child.

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If this is what happened, it'd go a long way toward making this make sense, for me. I still think 72 hours is too short a stay to feign any kind of real concern, as that is a suicide watch timeline and not a timeline for any real benefit or assistance that the kid might need.

Everyone keeps stressing the damage to this kid from the mere fact of the admission--it's going to go on his permanent record. Forget that, his name and this incident are available to anyone with a browser right now. They wouldn't have come from the hospital or the school district, as confidentiality laws protect that information. This mom is herself yapping to the media using her name, her kid's name, everything.

I'm having a bit of a cynical week, but I tend to share Monkey's assessment. Maybe the school acted heavy handedly, but mental health interventions are not Japanese tea pouring ceremonies at the best of times. They were trying to do the right thing.

I wish there weren't a stigma about the admissions. They happen to totally upstanding people. They force you to get treatment if you are injured in an accident, etc, too and yet people don't react the same way.

It's mental health treatment, where the person may not be the best judge of things (or the parents if a minor). It makes sense.

Someone very close to me has always been afraid of even a 72-hour committal. Compared to folks in a therapy group I used to go to for depression, where many folks had gotten great help by hospitalizations. Some even took off work to check themselves into the (mental) hospital, and went back to work later.

I just wish we'd not stigmatize it. 'Health' can often include hospitals; no surprise there!

Regardless of what happened, if it was the best way, or if it helped or hindered, this little boy needs help and his mom probably does, too. Talk to anyone who's spouse is deployed, especially in a combat zone, normal everyday stuff feels harder so this sort of thing may just be too much for her to deal with alone. I hope whatever happens, he's better for it. I don't look back fondly at my stay (other than the notes on my tray every day) but maybe his facility was more comforting than the place I was locked up in.

(Yup, I admit it freely. I'm not embarrassed... anymore)

GeorgeK said:

Just because you haven't met one does not mean that they do not exist. I've met a few during my days of doing pediatric surgery. They are very rare, but they do exist.

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IF you have done pediatric surgery, I assume you know about brain development and which areas of the brain do not finish growing until early adulthood. Brain development and life experience dictate the difference between the ability of a child to reason and that of adults. That doesn't mean all adults function at the same level and there aren't some adults with the reasoning ability of children, just that children don't have the same capacities as a fully developed, functioning adult. I'm surprised to see such a statement. In what capacity did you do pediatric surgery?

TerzaRima said:

Everyone keeps stressing the damage to this kid from the mere fact of the admission--it's going to go on his permanent record. Forget that, his name and this incident are available to anyone with a browser right now. They wouldn't have come from the hospital or the school district, as confidentiality laws protect that information. This mom is herself yapping to the media using her name, her kid's name, everything.
.

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Excellent point. And with this not-so-sound judgment, perhaps the school had the child's best interests more in mind than the mother.

PinkAmy said:

IF you have done pediatric surgery, I assume you know about brain development and which areas of the brain do not finish growing until early adulthood. Brain development and life experience dictate the difference between the ability of a child to reason and that of adults. That doesn't mean all adults function at the same level and there aren't some adults with the reasoning ability of children, just that children don't have the same capacities as a fully developed, functioning adult. I'm surprised to see such a statement. In what capacity did you do pediatric surgery?

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Since you are not a medical doctor, I'll tell you what should have been taught to you that there are no absolutes in medicine. There are no 100%'s. There are no guarantees. All of life ranges between the benign and the lethal. Statistics mean nothing when dealing with an individual. Some people survive the unsurviveable, and some perish in a slight breeze. Your subset of experience is a sample error by definition. You don't see the people who don't need your services.