Parenting tip of the day - put down the Taser

I hope you'll agree that in the spirit of Friday it's entirely appropriate for me to offer this as today's parenting tip:

If your children act up at bedtime, don't resort to Tasering them.

A police officer from Arkansas apparently used his Taser to subdue a 10-year-old girl after being called to the house by the mother because the child refused to go to bed.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that we don't necessarily need to call the cops when our kids are resisting bedtime.

There have been times I've been alone with my two boys during bedtime when I would have been quite happy for the authorities to show up, flash a badge and speed things along a little. Perhaps a short speech slightly fudging the law ("Now, young man, you KNOW children aren't allowed to be awake past 8 p.m.") would open up a little window of Me Time in the following few evenings.

I say this having heard all manner of bedtime inflating excuses from "I'm lonely" to "My ear is hot," "I forgot to tell you something," and "I miss my other jammies."

I haven't called the police. Yet.

Comments

[Jo Sue Murdock]

From the way it sounds: this child might have Asperger's autism, even a mild form of Asperger's causing rages and melt downs and believe me they don't sleep at night. They fight going to bed. I have raised an Asperger's grandson for 18 years. A lot of children are never diagnosed with it till it is too late for them. Most children are just called spoiled rotten, which is not the case. I hope the father gets custody of that child. Medications do help, but even that sometimes doesn't work.

[Tyciol]

Whatever problems the girl may have had, tasering her is just not acceptable. I really don't care if the mother authorized it, I don't think the cop had any justification for this.

The way it was dealt with was completely inappropriate. First off: he should not have threatened her with jail or attempted to handcuff her, what crime was she charged with exactly? Crying and not wanting to sleep is not exactly a crime.

When you are assaulted by an officer and haven't done anything wrong, and especially if they don't seem like a real police officer (I would be suspicious if they were doing un-policelike things such as attempting to arrest you when you're not a criminal) then it seems natural that a young girl is going to defend herself.

[Valerie]

That taser story is astounding! This child has issues with self-control and needs aid. The mother lost her wits and patience (ANY parent can attest to times of sheer stress and desparation)and made the mistake of calling the police. This officer and his superiors appear to be quite stupid...I agree with the father's comments. I'm stunned the officer is not being charged. Can you imagine the charges on the mother if she did something to that effect to control and restrain her daughter?

[Steve Kolasa]

I do not know about other state's law, but here in Illinois, would place any parent reguardless of the situation, to use a taser on a child. The child would be placed in DCFS (state system) and I would be arrested. Sick is all that come to mind here. Give a boy a toy, and he will use it!.....