This week in Massachusetts there was quite the uproar over an incident in which the press alleged an 8 year old boy was suspended from school and mandated to undergo a psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross. As I suspected there was more to the story. What was really shocking about this turn of events was the initial flood of outraged blog posts, e-mails to news stations and calls to talk radio excoriating psychologists for pathologizing religion and looking for reasons to find mental illness in youngsters In my experience, schools do not call for safety assessments unless they are truly worried about a child’s behavior. Young children cannot verbalize their distress and therefore we have to look to other indicators to try our best to determine possible risk. This often involves making tough calls (e.g., is a scary drawing a sign of trouble or just the imagination of a child?). We do this to the best of our ability with one goal in mind: to make sure schools and students are safe. That is why it was upsetting to me to see a public backlash against child psychologists over an incident that was initially improperly reported.
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Zero Tolerance
The recent suspension of a 6 year old in Delaware for brining a camping toll that included a pocketknife to school has brought zero tolerance policies to the fore. Zero tolerance for weapons in school is meant to be a deterrent to school violence, however common sense is needed. There is certainly a difference between a 6 year old who brings a camping tool to school to show his friends and a pre-teen or teen who brings a switchblade to school. As a psychologist who conducts safety assessments for schools I believe there we can evaluate risk on a case by case basis to determine if the “weapon” in safety violates the schools zero tolerance policy for weapons. That being said, parents please be as diligent as possible around monitoring what your children are bringing to school. I have seen key chain pocket knives, fishing knives and boy scout utility knives all lead to suspensions at the high school level when the students had no intention of harming anyone and were unaware possession of these items violated school rules.