Yesterday, I had a conversation where I said almost exactly (though probably not as eloquently) what LaShawn has to say here.

We live in a litigious society, and had the teacher done anything physical to restrain her, the parents would have sued the school. That must change. Schools should be allowed to administer a certain level of restraint when children become a physical threat to others without civil liability. I’m old enough to remember when principals paddled students. You had to be really bad to get sent to the principal’s office at the elementary school I attended, but if you were, you got paddled and sent home.

Those days are gone, thank goodness. The only people who should administer corporal punishment are the child’s parents. And believe me, my mother (and father a few times) administered plenty!

You can’t touch children that way anymore. But what do you do when they act out the way this child did? The teacher couldn’t let her run wild, knocking things over. She had to restrain her. This is what should have happened, in my opinion. Someone should have continued restraining the girl while her mother was called. NO COPS! If the mother couldn’t be reached or didn’t want to come, call the next number on the list. Good grief, call social services before you call the POLICE to arrest a child, for crying out loud!

Click through and read the rest.

I will say, though, that given the litigious nature of society, what are the police and the schools to do? If a kid is going nuts, and the “bear hug hold” isn’t permitted, cuffs seem like a good safe way to restrain the out of control child. The problem is not the handcuffs.