Aspies For Freedom

St. Tammany mother says teacher humiliated her son
08:21 AM CDT on Thursday, August 25, 2005

Shauna Sanford / WWL-TV Reporter


One St. Tammany Parish mother said her son’s teacher went too far in punishing her child; stripping him down to his underwear in an effort to teach him a lesson. The boy’s mother said the incident left her son humiliated, and now she wants the St. Tammany school system to take action.


Amy Williamson describes what happened to her child at Covington Elementary as horrifying.




WWL-TV

Amy Williamson said she wants the St. Tammany Parish school system to closely examine the matter.


“I was shaking so badly, I couldn't even talk to anybody. I mean, I was furious. To make a four-year-old child, who's almost 5, endure I don't even know how many hours of humiliation in front of how many people,” she said.


Williamson said her four-year-old son, a special needs student, was humiliated after his teacher forced him to sit in class and then get on the bus in only his t-shirt and underwear. Misty Brown, director of an after care program, said when the child arrived at her center, he was upset and embarrassed.


“He did not want to come off that bus and I had to literally pick him up with his knees tucked under his shirt cause I guess he didn't want to show anybody and he had no shoes and no socks on,” Brown said before realizing that the child wasn’t wearing any pants. “And I just said, ‘come on in. We'll get you some pants.’ And he was fine after that.”


Williamson said among other things her son suffers from a severe speech impediment and had it not been for Brown she would never have known what happened. When she called the school, the teacher told her she was punishing the boy for wetting his pants twice.


"She said if it bothers you that much I won't do it again, but I wanted to show him who was boss and I wanted to make sure he won't do it again,” Williamson said, who’s now asking the St. Tammany school system to take action to protect her son and other children as well.


Williamson said she has an attorney but does not really want to put her son through a court challenge, and would rather the school board take care of the matter.


"I want to make sure this never happens to any child, anywhere, ever again. God knows because he can't really tell me what's going on, how long he's gonna carry this with him. But this is the classic thing that all kids have nightmares about being at school in their underwear. I mean, you see it in the movies. He was degraded in front of I don't know how many people and I don't know for how long,” she said.


The St. Tammany Parish Public School System issued a statement about this case:


“Parent concerns about our students are addressed swiftly and carefully. In this matter that has been brought to our attention, we will follow established procedures to thoroughly address the matter and help prevent such situations in the future.”


A district spokesperson confirms the investigation is underway.


Williamson’s son remains at the school, though he’s been moved to a different class.


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Online at: http://www.wwltv.com/local/northshore/st...8b35e.html

Poor little guy. And who knows what else she has done to the kid before, since he can't tell. If the problem wouldn't have been obvious this time (him arriving at the babysitter's without pants), his mother still wouldn't know how cruel that teacher was to him!

And of course, punishing a little child for wetting his pants will make the problem only worse, anyway. Punishment is only ever okay if a child has purposely done something bad. I'm sure no little boy would purposely wet his pants at school.

That's just sick, she needs to be fired and be charged with child abuse.

I've dealt with many school teachers in my time as a mother, and I would never expect any teacher to do stuff like that to a little kid in this day and age. Even back in the "olden days" when I was a little kid at school, teachers didn't do things like that (not that I knew of anyway). The sensible way for a school teacher to deal with that kind of common situation has been that they help the kid to get cleaned-up in privacy and then either try to contact the parents or get some pants from "Lost Property" for the child to wear for the rest of the day. There's always something wearable in "Lost Property".

Sack the ***!

I knew someone who taught kindergarten.  The problem will be that several of the children in the class will not be toilet trained.  There are some children at age four still wearing diapers and will not use the toilet for all functions.  Several "wetting" or "spoiling" accidents are expected to happen every week.  When a child spoils themselves, they will smell.  No doubt that sitting around in spoiled smelly clothing is also a health risk to others as well as embarrassing and uncomfortable for the child.  

The child in the article has some speech problems.  Maybe he can not tell someone that he has to go to use the toilet.  As I remember the early years of school, they were trying to condition us all to use the bathroom only when they wanted us to use it.  This is a big problem for some children who are not used to holding it.  Other child, I suppose, are just used to letting go where ever and when ever if they had not been toilet trained.

You would think that the parents would understand something.  Teachers do not like cleaning up their kids and changing them but do it because it is part of the job.  The parents should send the child to school with extra clothing if they know there is a problem.  I find it hard to believe that the teacher just took the pants off the child without them being soiled.  The teacher I knew just kept a bag of extra underwear in the class to change children into.  Once a boy soiled himself and he had to change and clean him.  He did not have any "boy" underwear and had to send the child home with "girl" underwear.  The teacher did not have any parent call or send a note about it.  So really the parents could be the ones who need "a lesson".   I can not understand why I am always seeing three and four year olds wearing diapers.  There are even "overnight" diapers for child sizes up to eight years old.

M, I think you might be confusing two different things. An 8 year old who still wears diapers (or nappies as we call them in Australia) is not doing that because of a lack of toilet training, they have some more uncommon type of problem such as enuresis (bed-wetting). Parents aren't to blame for bed-wetting. I heard about some research that found that bed-wetting runs in families and is most likely genetically-determined, nothing to do with parenting.

It's quite a common thing for uninformed people to blame parents for child behaviour that is troublesome or unattractive. As a parent myself, I no longer have much tolerance for people who criticise parents without thinking first.

"He did not have any "boy" underwear and had to send the child home with "girl" underwear."

What is girl underwear to be different from boys? With a flower pattern? I don't think that it would be a big problem.

"I can not understand why I am always seeing three and four year olds wearing diapers. There are even "overnight" diapers for child sizes up to eight years old."

I am puzzled why you say that, actually 'diapers' are made in adult sizes too, for all ages. It depends on the child's need, or adults need, disability, specific condition, delayed development or whatever.
Nursery school teachers can expect to have accidents from kids, its normal, if they want clothes from parents they need to send a note home.

I always packed a pair of "emergency pants" in my children's school bags when they were little, but I don't think they were needed fortunately. One of my kids did pee their dacks at a friend's place due to too much laughing. There are lots of reasons why a kid might pee their pants.

dacks = trousers?

Dacks or daks are trousers. If you laugh too much you could "cack your dacks" and that isn't a good thing. :?

If you dack someone that means you have pulled their pants down just for fun (your own fun, that is). A wedgie is another form of malevolent pants-related fun that can be inflicted on an unsuspecting victim.  :o

Lol, thanks.

Of course you can comment.
I know that a doctor will not offer anythting more than advice until a child is 8 and still bedwetting.
It is considered within the normal range until after 8, and not unusual.

Wetting and soiling could be a sign of abuse or medical problem, but it is much more commonly not any of those. In the past such habits as thumbsucking were seen as signs of a disturbed child, but I think there is more enlightenment now.

It can also be a problem with a child not being able to sense he/she has to go, due to nerve interference. A friend's little boy would regularly pee his pants when nearly four, and it was impossible to train him. The mother followed the doctor's advice, without improvement. But when she took the boy to a chiropractor, he put back in place (adjusted) a misaligned vertebra through which the specific nerves for sensing lower body sensations went, and bingo, the child was toilet trained from that day on. Not many people would even think of that possibility!

M,
When I was a kid teachers were still allowed to clean up a child who had had peed their pants, but I don't know if all teachers would have done this. I understand why this is no longer allowed, and I do think it is a good thing that teachers are not allowed to be alone with a child in certain situations. I also think it is a good thing that teachers are no longer allowed to hit kids or throw things at them. I remember a psycho teacher who used to throw chalk or books at kids who did not pay attention. No competant teacher should need to resort to such measures. Just today I saw a female teacher hugging a primary-school aged boy at the school oval. I guess the kid must have been upset about something. I'm glad there are still teachers who are willing to console a distressed child, but only when appropriate.

You mentioned a situation in which a child might come home from school repeatedly in strange underwear due to being changed at school often due to wetting or soiling. No decent parent would fail to notice such a thing and make inquiries about what was happening. If any parent ignored or failed to notice such a thing that would make them negligent, in my opinion. But that situation would never happen, as any sensible teacher would contact the parent if a child wet or soiled themself at school, so the parent would not be left guessing. I can't imagine a situation in which a parent could be left unaware of a chronic wetting or soiling problem at school. If a child messed themself at school and the parents could not be contacted to change the child, I can't see why the teacher couldn't help the child to find some suitable pants from "lost property" or wherever, and then instruct the child to clean themself up in the toilets alone, giving the child a plastic bag to put their messy gear into to take home.

Last night I saw a TV show about school bullying, and one boy told his story of severe bullying, and the first sign that his parents had that their was a problem was the boy wetting and soiling himself, at school due to the fact that the bullys had the boy so terrorised that he was afraid to use the school toilets. The boy also started bed-wetting at home, though he had been toilet trained at age 2, because of the psychological stress of severe school bullying. So you can see there are any number of reasons why a child might mess themself at school, too much laughing, fear of using school toilets, stress from bullying or some other stressor, late or unusual development. I would think that lack of toilet training or sexual abuse are relatively unlikely causes of messing in older children. There is also a medical condition that is sometimes found in children that can develop as a result of ordinary constipation. The constipation can be so painful to pass that the child avoids doing number 2s, and that just makes the problem worse, as the constipation becomes even more large and hard the longer it stays there, so eventually the child involuntarily messes their pants after a long time of passing nothing. It sounds pretty ghastly, but is initiated by nothing more unusual than ordinary constipation.

I agree that a child who isn't toilet trained should not be sent to school without an aide to deal with messes that might happen, but teachers understand that there are many different reasons why any primary-school-aged child might occassionally mess their pants. I have even heard of a boy in a gifted and talented class peeing his pants in class. It can happen to the best of us! Some girls start to have their periods while still primary-school-aged. There's that kind of drama to deal with too.

I'm sorry that you feel like that, its generally a personal way to respond to someone.
There is nothing negative about it.
Sometimes if you mean to reply to someone, and in the mean time someone has posted on the same thread, it can be confusing as to who you were addressing.