Why aren't parents correcting their DC?

[Meili04]

I just saw the DM article about an 11 year old boy being tasered for brandishing a knife over a tantrum in burger king. The mum said they were too harsh. I've seen this in my DDs school their child is a little angel and can do no wrong. If my child is mean to another child I correct the behaviour , if they rude I do the same.
My DC is a human being with faults and isn't perfect 100 percent of the time, no person is.

Why can some parents see no fault in their child? Our responsibility as parents is to bring up DC to be functioning adults who thrive. Treating DC as mini deities does them no favours. I think parenting is becoming too gentle. AIBU?

Exactly. Mumsnet wants ‘zero tolerance’ for male violence and aggression, but how can this happen when all we do is tolerate and make excuses for teens or older children showing scary behaviour that would have them locked up if they were 5 years older?

Nothing magical happens the moment you turn 18 which suddenly means you’re capable of self control. It’s a learned process so lessons need to happen earlier on

I doubt the police are generally trained in martial arts though, although I think they should be.

I agree with de-escalation tactics first before deploying lethal or potentially lethal weapons but that's not how it is.

Brandishing a dangerous or potentially dangerous weapon comes at a heavy price and the boy is lucky he isn't dead (out of self-defence). They did what they could and if he was holding a proper knife or a gun, he'd still have used it. Hopefully now he knows not to use anything as a weapon.

Lucky he wasn't in America, the police would have shot him.

That is not what I was saying at all.

There is a huge difference between gangs of children - or individual children - who set out (armed) to terrorise people, and a child who reacts so irrationally to a situation that would to the average NT child be at worst a bit upsetting. Add to that that his 'weapon' was just a butter knife, and without more details I think his profile is much closer to that of an ND child than either a spoilt, badly-parented or off-the-rails NT child.

Gentle parenting is bollocks.

It's not gentle parenting. There's gentle parenting and there's 'permissive parenting' or

'take no accountability for your actions' parenting or

'the world revolves around you and must make all sorts of accommodations for you and nothing is your fault because you are/have x,y,z and it's too hard to teach you right from wrong because of it' parenting or

'I can't be arsed to do a thorough job of parenting so I'll let my child do whatever and say I'm gentle parenting' parenting.

They're not the same.

I’m gonna repeat. It has not been confirmed it was “just” a butter knife. The mum is saying that but it is not confirmed.

I think it's good if its being investigated, I'm not sure uploading a live stream of your vulnerable and distressed son on tik tok and then going on social media to give half the story is overly effective though. If the police were wrong in this then I hope they're brought to task through the appropriate channels and by people that know all of the facts.

I have a sibling who has GDD and they would have been distressed by being disarmed physically or tasered, there isn't really a perfect way for it to be handled that won't distress them. Crux is though that it's still not acceptable to be carrying a knife and raising it, not just for the sake of others (I don't think if people were to be harmed to have a loved one stabbed they'd say ah its fine they couldn't help it); but for their own sake- raise it around the wrong person and sadly it might be a huge and fatal mistake.

Something does need to be done about knife crime, for an 11 year old to be carrying a knife on their person (which going by what the mother has said be must have been to have it) and then to raise it to the police (appreciate with GDD it's not always as straightforward) that's also learned behaviour.

You can't have it all ways- want to cut knife crime, violent men and whatever else but be super lenient when they're young. I do agree the lack of support for children and for parents with GDD and other conditions is woeful, but again, I really don't think it's something people would just accept as fine if they were harmed.

I do think it seems over the top behaviour from the police.

The problem with these situations is that the mother can say what she wants, but the police have to keep confidentiality and not give their side of the story at this stage.

So in this tabloid article, we never know what the facts really are.

he got off lightly

Learning difficulties doesn't make someone brandish a weapon. Learning difficulties doesn't make someone immune to self-defence tactics by attack when he's caused others to not feel safe.

This is a direct cause and effect situation that most people will understand and hopefully learn to avoid in the future, even some people with learning difficulties.

Police, presumably in stab vests, should be able to get a butter knife off a child.

If they touched him and he struggled the family would be yelling abuse and paedos, especially if his struggling left any mark on him. There is nothing the police could have done in this situation that would not result in the family complaining bitterly while failing to take any responsibility for their demonstrably poor parenting.

Honestly being a police officer myself. Tasering to me is far better than going hands on and having to use offensive techniques such as baton strikes and taking to the ground. It ends it quicker, minimal injuries and quite often a lesson learnt for the future. I of course realise mine may be a an unpopular opinion but it is lot better than punching a kid in the face because he tried to bite you when you try to grab 'only a butter knife' from them.

100%.

Perhaps those who are so vocal in their support for this child-thug should have a look at the figures for knife-crime in this country - and compare those statistics to the figures relating to people who have died after being tasered.

As for whether the police reacted proportionately or not - I don't know. I wasn't there, and neither were any of you. I'd rather let the investigation do its job.

I once spent a week in a psychiatric hospital. All cutlery issued with your meals was counted. It's absolutely possible to kill someone with bog standard knives and forks.

Being tasered is far preferable to a five officer takedown or rapid tranquilisation (do they still use that dreadful Acuphase?). It's much safer, with no lasting side effects.

It’s just so depressing. Imagine how much has already gone wrong in this child’s parenting for him to be behaving this way now. I hope he has some decent role models in his life to help him turn things around.

I agree of course that this child's behaviour was unacceptable, but that doesn't make it okay for these officers to use a taser. The child is literally backing away in the video, trying to put space between him and the police. There is no threat to the police, so tasing him was completely over the top and unjustified.

It is sad that the child has ended up in that situation though, completely unable to handle his own emotions and no coping skills for even minor inconveniences. I would suspect an underlying issue combined with piss-poor parenting.

If they touched him and he struggled the family would be yelling abuse and paedos, especially if his struggling left any mark on him. There is nothing the police could have done in this situation that would not result in the family complaining bitterly while failing to take any responsibility for their demonstrably poor parenting

I have to agree.
I believe the police absolutely did the right thing, noone should be threatening anyone with a knife.

What else do you think they should have done that would have meant no risk of getting stabbed? How would you like your husband coming home cut to ribbons, having lost an eye, or even worse not at all? Wouldn't like that hey? Guess it's not your problem as its not your partner/child/parent. It's mine though, he doesn't deserve to be stabbed. I hope they do it twice next time.

No threat to the police/public or himself? Clearly was as he was brandishing a knife. Presumably you wouldn't be saying that had it been your child hurt by this thug. In fact, I'm sure you would be saying "something should have been done to stop him!!!!"

Any reason? If the 11 year old was assaulting someone or actively stabbing them I suggest tasering would be appropriate

Am i the only one who thinks they should have tasered the mother too, might have shocked her arse into doing some actual parenting.

The boys mother did not explain how or why her son was armed with a knife in that Daily Mail article. Presumably it did not materialize out of thin air.

I'm more surprised she's more concerned about the police tassering her ds than the fact her 11yr old is brandishing a knife! stupid woman.

If he didn't have a knife whether a bread knife or not he wouldn't of got tasered! If my child was tasered and it was because they were waving a knife around I'd want to know why the fuck they thought it was ok to do that! Don't do and you don't get tasered! Simple really!

He was backing away, trying to put space between himself and the officers. He was, in a childish and ineffective way, trying to deescalate the situation himself. If he was advancing upon the officers then that would be a different story. I'm not saying that his behaviour was acceptable, but I am saying that the threat he posed did not match the over the top response.