Tasering the Ten Year Olds

A story rocking my part of the world is that of a police officer tasering a ten-year-old girl.

I’d love to see a picture of this girl.  She must be pretty fearsome to have prompted her mother to call the police in the first place.

Seems the mother wanted the girl to take a shower before going to bed. The girl did not want to.  As we say in these parts, she threw a fit.  Mother phoned the police.  The policeman told the girl to settle down and mind her mother.

The girl continued to resist. The adults decided she needed to go to jail. When the policeman proceeded to handcuff her, the girl kicked him in the groin. That’s when he tasered her.  But, he says he asked the mother first and that she gave her permission.

The story has a lot to say about U.S. culture:

Parents who let their children reach the age of ten without socializing them.

Parents who expect the civil authorities to socialize their children long past the window of opportunity.

Parents who have so little feeling for their own children that they would give permission for them to be tasered.

I have no doubt that the girl’s behavior was abominable. I spent many years as a classroom teacher. I’ve seen what kind of violence is possible in children who are allowed to grow up without being socialized by their parents. I can even understand the urge to taser some of them.

This is a story that deserves everyone’s attention. Not because of the tasering, but because of the mother who felt she had to call the police because she was being terrorized by her own ten year old.

Be assured that there are plenty of other parents and children like this in every town and city in the U.S. This kind of terrorism needs to be addressed as well as the kind that comes from abroad.