Comments: 12-28-2007 Media Madness
i like the music, thanks for that link.
Posted by Stephany at December 28, 2007 01:32 PM
I was quite taken by the Rotenberg story. I think that kind of coercive approach is doomed to failure. Punishment is no way to establish real change, because all it tells the kids is "if you do something wrong, we're going to punish you, and our capacity for dishing out pain surpasses yours." I suspect that the kids already know that. It's all very well for parents and clinicians (or whatever they are), to have the behaviour disappear, superficially - anything for a quiet life, but that's no kind of solution.
More to the point, whatever it is that the behaviour is trying to express is simply going to have to find another outlet - there's no suppressing extreme behaviour, like that. Not completely, anyway. How are these kids going to communicate whatever it is that they're trying to communicate, in future? God knows. A scary thought, though, isn't it?
Anyway, I've written a couple of thoughts on my blog:
http://itsquiteanexperience.blogspot.com/2007/12/parents-defend-schools-use-of-shock.html
Matt
Posted by Matthew Holford at December 28, 2007 05:21 PM