9-Year-Old Girl Arrested After Her School Bus Tantrum Takes a Violent Turn

If she's supposed to be taking meds then who is making sure she takes them every day? Clearly someone dropped the ball if that's the case. If that's not the case, then further investigaiton needs to be done. 

I agree with Melissa- if meds were prescribed and were not administered correctly, then someone dropped the ball. 

To boobookittt- My children have a friend with a mental disorder. Unlike your advice of "they need to be separated," I chose to teach the kids about the disorder, what the implications are, and to accept him as the sweet and loving boy that he is 99.9999999999% of the time.  Yes, this child has had several episodes, and my kids know to immediately inform an adult.  I'm proud that my kids have compassion and don't want this sweet child to feel isolated because of a disorder with which he was born.  Educate, don't hate (and, I guess in your eyes, isolate). 

Well, I think she's not schizophrenic, for one - that's a pathology that never occurs prior to puberty, and rarely occurs in anyone until their 20's.  Based on the fact that the mother tossed out an outrageous lie to excuse the behavior, I'll go out on a limb and say lack of parenting is part of the problem.  And if she is indeed mentally unstable and not just a little shit (which I doubt), she needs to be a treatment program and the adults responsible for her care when she is away from her parents need to be informed on how to handle her.

As a teacher, these kids scare the CRAP out of me!  I hope the truth comes out, and she gets WHATEVER kind of help she needs.

This is clearly not learned behavior.    No child who is in anyway in control of themselves will bang their head against jail bars so hard that they require pepper spray.  Frankly, she needed to go to a psych ER not jail but those are not as available as they should be and there are few equiped to deal properly with children this young.

 

Schizophrenia DOES occur in children though it is not common (http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/schizophrenia_in_children).    It is a terrifying and debilitating condition.  I've had one student who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and she was terrified all the time.

 

My guess is that this young lady will be riding a special education bus to school after this with an aide.  If she is in a mainstream classroom (and there is no reason to believe otherwise given that meds provide some relief), she will probably be given a full time aide if she hasn't already.    It is also possible she took her medicine or part of her medicine but requires a dosage change.

 

Poor girl.

I checked out her school:   http://roy.leeschools.net/mission.html

 

She's already in a special school setting, completely removed from mainstream students.   Clearly this child has significant, ongoing psychiatric problems.  Poor girl.

Oh and a three week suspension is likely a violation of Federal Laws regarding special education.  By law, she can not be removed from the classroom for more than 10 days a year if her disability played a role in her behavior.

When a child behaves like that, it's almost always the result of a serious mental health issue, not lax parenting. Some people like to believe that when a child has serious behavioral issues, it can be cured by a "good old-fashioned whoopin'." The reality is that with a seriously mentally ill child, a good old-fashioned whoopin' will only succeed in making the illness next to impossible to overcome, because you're adding the trauma of child abuse on top of an already serious health condition. In this particular case, I think that the mom claiming her daughter is schizophrenic is probably the real story. With individuals on the schizophrenia spectrum (which, by the way, includes bipolar disorder), these tendencies often start in childhood. *Hopefully* she isn't also the victim of childhood abuse, as well, which unfortunately is possible because some severe psychiatric problems are hereditary. But giving her parents the benefit of the doubt, the three weeks at home after an "episode" gives the family time to meet with the girl's doctors, discuss what happened, adjust her treatment plan, and see results before she goes back to school. If an adult suffered something like that, some time off from work to get things sorted out would likely be the best course of action, so why not a child, as well? It also gives the other children some time to forgive and forget.

Im sure there is something wrong with her but she either needs to take her meds or stay home. She doesn't need to put other children at risk and cause a disruption like that.