You Read it Here First: The Deaf Pre-Schooler Story

Hi Readers! Just had to crow. The story about Hunter, the deaf pre-schooler who was told to change his name because it violated the school’s anti-gun policy, was sent to us by a gal in Hunter’s neck of the woods — Nebraska — on Monday night, which is when I posted and tweeted  it. By Tuesday afternoon, the story had gone ’round the world. Google it — you can’t miss it. On Yahoo’s home page alone it got 17,000+ comments. And despite the fact neither this site nor the one where I’m guest-posting this month, The Agitator, are getting credit (see this),   Free-Range Kids was, as far as I can tell, the first to bring it to national attention.

What thrills me about that is knowing that the press is peeking in on us, and ready to take up the anti-stupidity standard. It’s also thrilling to see how obvious it is to most humans that Zero Tolerance too often means Zero Brains. Hunter’s story may go on to achieve “The Lady Who Sued McDonald’s For Hot Coffee” status (but don’t start debating it here!), used as a sort of shorthand for, “Come on — under the pretense of caring, this is just INSANE.”

We could use a story like that, because it is time to re-think so many schools rules and time to remember our kids just aren’t that vulnerable. For me it is also time to thank YOU, readers, for always sending in the best examples of what’s wrong with the way we treat kids, and what’s right.

Keep it up! – L.

Outrage of the Day: 8 Year Old Suspended ANOTHER Year for Toy Gun

Hi Readers! Such stupidity cannot be condoned: An 8-year-old was suspended LAST year for bringing a toy gun to school (accidentally), and this year, the draconian punishment continues. The difference between TOY and WEAPON, between MISTAKE and PREMEDITATED, between KILLER and KID seems to be utterly lost on these “educators.”

The school board said they would admit Samuel into a correctional school for problem children who have been expelled located in Hallandale Beach.

The parents refused and believe their son has already paid for his mistake enough. Samuel has since been home-schooled, but his parents want him back in public school.

“I can’t sit here and allow them to send my kid to a school where students have committed actual crimes,” Burgos said. “He hasn’t committed a crime.”

Here’s the whole story. Thank goodness, this week the family gets another chance to persuade the school board that Zero Tolerance for rationality is maybe not such a great idea. — Lenore

Outrage of the Afternoon: School Bans Toy Soldiers

Hi Folks! I’m a pacifist at heart and I have no desire to see guns in the school. But I also have no desire to see a boy told he cannot wear the hat he decorated with toy soldiers because the soldiers are carrying — guess what? Toy guns.

Ooh! How terrifying! You can find me under the desk!

As this A.P. article by Michelle Smith explains, the second grader made the hat for some kind of hat day, and he was inspired by having met a soldier last year. He wanted to honor the guy and our troops. That’s an impulse you really want to squash, right? Respect? Gratitude? Feh!

Apparently,  the  principal said he would not object to the boy’s patriotic hat if the little plastic soldiers simply were not carrying weapons. (Though imagine the brouhaha if the boy attempted to sever the weapons from the soldiers’ hands.It might involve a knife! And then blood! And then, probably, death!)

So off with his head! Er…hat. And chalk up another brilliant decision made in the name of  Zero Tolerance. Remember: when tiny plastic weapons are outlawed, only tiny plastic outlaws will have tiny plastic weapons. — Lenore

And you should see his Agent Orange lunchbox!

Outrage of the Week: Autistic Boy Draws Stick Figure Gun, Charged with “Terrorist Threats”

Hi Readers — I leave you with this story to ponder this weekend. An 8th grade boy with autism whose mom says he has the mental capacity of a third grader drew a small stick figure boy pointing a stick-figure gun at a stick figure teacher. The charge?

Oh, you know if it from my headline. Good ol’ “making terrorist threats.”  Remember: When stick figures’ guns are outlawed, only outlaws (who are stick figures) will have guns. — Lenore

Do Toy Guns Turn Kids into Killers?

Hi Readers — Here’s another question that arrived in th email. It began,  “Can we talk about gunplay for a few minutes?” Happily, by “gunplay” they writer didn’t mean, “What’s the upside of random shootings?” But rather, “Is it okay for kids to play around, pretending to shoot each other?”

While it drives me crazy when one of my sons puts his hand up to his brother’s temple and pantomimes “Pow!”, I totally love it when they get out their Nerf guns and run around playing shoot ’em up. I used to think toy guns were a tool of depravity. Now I think they’re toys…that happen to be guns.  So onward to the reader’s letter:

Dear Free-Range Kids: I had no idea how far the hysteria over gun play had gone these days until my son got in trouble for it last week at school.

The thing is, he wasn’t playing with a gun. He and his friends were playing with sticks. And since they were well aware of the rule against “gun play” (the rule that I had previously been ignorant of), they weren’t even pretending that the sticks were guns; they were pretending that they were crossbows.

By nobody’s report were they bothering anybody. The game involved the 5 or so boys who were happily playing with each other and that was the scope of it.

For this, my son and his band of friends were prohibited from sitting with each other at lunch for a day, and were banned from the school playground “until further notice.” At recess, they had to stay under close supervision on the blacktop.

Now, my husband happens to work at the school and he spoke with some of the staff members involved, which resulted in them reinstating the boys’ playground privileges 2 days later. But my husband also found out that the rule against gunplay is mandated by the state, so there’s no use in complaining to the principal; this is a legislative matter.

I suppose I should be thankful that that’s as far as it went. At no point was suspension or any other wild overreaction even mentioned. A friend I spoke with after this happened mentioned that when her son had been in first grade, he was threatened with suspension for making a threat against a friend to “shoot her with his BB gun.” Never mind that he didn’t even have a BB gun, it was actually a Nerf gun. Never mind that he didn’t have it with him at the time, and never mind that these two kids were good friends who loved to tease each other. Regardless, if he did it again, he’d be suspended.

My son is a gentle-natured boy who’s normally more interested in climbing trees than playing shoot-’em-up, so we don’t have much gunplay at home. But even if we did — seriously, these are kids, and it’s imaginary play. I know the difference, and so do kids. It’s only the grownups who seem to struggle with the distinction.

Based on the little bit of Googling I did, it seems there’s no proven correlation between gunplay and real aggression. Some have even suggested that prohibiting gunplay could have the opposite effect and make guns a tempting forbidden fruit.

I understand that events like Columbine have scared the crap out of people, but I have a hard time seeing how playing with a few sticks on the playground is going to turn kids into murderers. -Cindy H.

Stop? PHOTO CREDIT: woodleywonderworks, on Flickr. http://bit.ly/97MUu3

Outrage of the Week: Boy Almost Suspended for Lego Gun The Size of a Cheeto

Hi Readers — I am ashamed to say this incident happened in my own city, New York. (Well, Staten Island, anyway.)

A Staten Island fourth-grader was reprimanded and almost suspended yesterday when the principal spotted him playing with a LEGO policeman and a two-inch-long toy gun during lunch, the Advance reports.

Under the city’s no-tolerance policy regarding guns in schools, PS 52 Principal Evelyn Matroianni brought 9-year-old Patrick Timoney to her office and called his mother to say the boy might be suspended for carrying the miniature toy gun to school.

Hallelujah, he avoided that fate, which I suppose should be considered a great victory. But a greater victory would have been a principal who figured that a teensy Lego gun is a teensy Lego gun and not the sign of a psychotic tween or threat to  the human race. — Lenore