A woman who lives in the American state of Georgia had her 10 year old son mock arrested by police.
Chiquita Hill had some discipline issues with her 10 year old son who is in the 5th grade. The boy was misbehaving in class, talking back to his teacher and refusing to do class work she told CBS News affiliate, WRBL.
Hill claimed she wanted to teach her son a lesson, so she called 911 and asked that they place her son in handcuffs and pretend to send him to jail. She then took pictures of the arrest and posted on her face book page.
Sowetan Live spoke to Johannesburg based Child psychologist Melanie Hartgill about what possible psychological effect this could have had on the child.
She explained that the biggest issue here would be the breakdown of trust between the mother and the son. That it would take them a long time to rebuild their relationship. And the mother had shown him that she can’t control him by calling in the police. Also the boy could start distrusting the police.
“If the police are arresting the child for behaving badly, this could send the wrong message about the police to the child. The child was not stealing,” Hartgill said.
Involving the law would confuse the child as he hadn’t committed any illegal act.
We also asked her what the mother could have done differently.
“Ideally it would have been better for the mother to speak to a male figure in the boy’s life; grandfather, father or an uncle, a person who can get involved and speak to the boy. If this wasn’t possible then the mother could have spoken to a social worker, psychologist or gotten the school involved.”
Do you think the mother went too far or did she do the right thing?
Mom has misbehaving son, 10, arrested
A woman who lives in the American state of Georgia had her 10 year old son mock arrested by police.
Chiquita Hill had some discipline issues with her 10 year old son who is in the 5th grade. The boy was misbehaving in class, talking back to his teacher and refusing to do class work she told CBS News affiliate, WRBL.
Hill claimed she wanted to teach her son a lesson, so she called 911 and asked that they place her son in handcuffs and pretend to send him to jail. She then took pictures of the arrest and posted on her face book page.
Sowetan Live spoke to Johannesburg based Child psychologist Melanie Hartgill about what possible psychological effect this could have had on the child.
She explained that the biggest issue here would be the breakdown of trust between the mother and the son. That it would take them a long time to rebuild their relationship. And the mother had shown him that she can’t control him by calling in the police. Also the boy could start distrusting the police.
“If the police are arresting the child for behaving badly, this could send the wrong message about the police to the child. The child was not stealing,” Hartgill said.
Involving the law would confuse the child as he hadn’t committed any illegal act.
We also asked her what the mother could have done differently.
“Ideally it would have been better for the mother to speak to a male figure in the boy’s life; grandfather, father or an uncle, a person who can get involved and speak to the boy. If this wasn’t possible then the mother could have spoken to a social worker, psychologist or gotten the school involved.”
Do you think the mother went too far or did she do the right thing?
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