http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/10/first-grade-kiss-suspension/3963813/
What do you think about this?
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The punishment doesn't fit the crime. This is a 6 year old boy that kissed a girl's hand. It did not warrant suspension.
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Depends what the policy is at the school. Sometimes things aren't worded to be able to handle specific situations and they err in the side of caution.
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I think it's ridiculous. I remember being chased around the yard at recess so that a boy could give me a kiss in first grade! And this kid just kissed the girl's HAND!!!! What an over-reaction!
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Suspension is a bit extreme. However, I am happy the boy was punished. Kissing may seem innocent and cute at their age, but just like hitting kissing violates personal space. How else will we teach our boys and girls to keep their bodies to themselves if we let this behavior slide.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: yes I agree!
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I think they over reacted. It feels to me like schools are so worried about complaints/lawsuits from parents now that they have taken all discretion away from the the teachers and principals. Everything has to be specifically proscribed in writing and then they have to follow that to the letter, regardless of whether it makes sense.
I would like to see a return to common sense and evaluating things on a case-by-case basis. What this boy needed was a talking-to about personal space and why his behavior was not okay. And if he did it again, maybe a time-out or something. But he's SIX. Calling this sexual harassment and suspending him is insane.
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This is way overreacting. The kid has no idea what he did was wrong or why and this is a pretty normal stage of development. We are going to be in big trouble because we kiss everyone in greeting - even people we've just met sometimes! Kissing someone on the hand once doesn't really meet the legal definition of sexual harassment anyway.
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Suspension is extreme, however I want to know how the girl & her family feels about it. Was this a boy who wouldn't leave her alone even though she wanted himi too or did they truly like each other and it was an act of school aged crushes? I do not think he deserved suspension, maybe sent to the office or timeout from recess?
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When I saw the headline I thought it was an overreaction but then I read this: "Jennifer Saunders said her son was suspended once before for kissing the girl". At six years old he's old enough to know right from wrong and he had already been suspended for this EXACT same issue and he should have learned his lesson. The mom also said the boy had other disciplinary problems so it seems like there is more going on here than just an innoncent kiss on the hand.
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@Mae: I absolutely agree. He's six!
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@MamaMoose: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, and @LuLu Mom: I'm curious about that too. I do remember in kindergarten there was one boy who was always running around trying to chase the girls. It wasn't cute or funny, it was someone in my space who wasn't respecting my boundaries and making me uncomfortable. Normally I would still say a suspension is over the top, but based on the fact that his mom said there is nothing wrong with what he did and that it was just a display of affection, it sounds like a harsher punishment may have been necessary just to give mom a wake-up call.
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Oh geez. I am going to be keeping an EYE on some of those little 6 year old boys in my DD's class! I think if he has been warned before for doing the same thing, he does need a consequence. Suspension seems like a lot, but he deserves something for sure. It also sounds like he knew exactly what he was doing.
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Are you kidding me? When I was a kid a bunch of girls used to chase the boys to hug and kiss them while they ran around screaming and no one ever got suspended.
For this to be labelled as sexual harassment is way too extreme.
If people are worried about enforcing boundaries, a discussion from the boy's parents about that would have been sufficient.
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13 comments