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?

@Axahooxa I think you missed this?

Would you say the same if he was 18?

Given the 'tantrum', the age and the type of knife involved, I strongly suspect that the boy was ND, whether diagnosed or not.

That would explain the behaviour, though not necessarily make the slightest difference to how the police should have dealt with it, as their No.1 priority has to be the safety of everyone present.

I don't know if it's the same now but when I was a mh nurse many years ago if someone carried a knife and were waving it around they were at really high risk of having it taken off them and being stabbed themselves with it.

Many teens with mh problems carried them as they were scared for their own safety.

It's not the answer and being tasered is a far better outcome than being stabbed by your own weapon

I work for CC now and the number of teens coming through the system for knife offences is unbelievable

My 11 year old has waved a knife at us. He has ADHD and we have no help apart from school - no respite, no behavioural interventions, no support in the home and no help for our mental health.

He also has epilepsy and there is no way that police could know that by just looking at him. I have never thought of this horrific possibility before but I just looked it up and not surprisingly a taser can cause a seizure. A serious seizure can make him stop breathing.

Our DS would not do this in public (he is withdrawn and hides if under pressure in public, or at the most shouts or runs away) but this boy is NOT waving a dangerous knife and is not a risk to anyone, there would have been no problem just sitting down or standing still and stopping him from leaving the area - he couldn't even stab through skin with a butter knife, let alone a stab vest. 5 adults can stop another adult from leaving let alone an 11 year old.

Reading the comments I suspect many posters have never been on the receiving end of anti social behaviour, gangs of brats roaming around terrorising neighbourhoods, for the simple reason that they can. I'm surprised that vigilante groups haven't been formed, but I feel.that this may happen eventually.
People will just take the law into their own hands. Then of course the police will be round faster than shit off a shovel to protect the little darlings.
Bring it on, I say!!

I worked with someone whose colleague was killed by a patient who grabbed the pen the victim had in his shirt pocket and stabbed him in the charotid artery killing him in under a minute. With a pen.

There are two separate issues here how things are dealt with in the moment in order to stop a situation that is already taking place and what is going on to prevent things like this in the first place.

sadly too ofren we are reactive rather than proactive.

A 12 year old waving a knife is also extreme and needs dealing with. If a taser is what it takes so be it, had they done nothing and the mini-thug has slashed someone with his knife they, the police, would have been crucified. The mother is now claining 'it was only a butter knife' !

Isn't tapering meant to be a non-lethal (or at least less lethal) alternative to shooting someone acting dangerously? In which case it does seem overkill in this situation.

Well he won't do that again in a hurry. We've a lad like him locally escalate from shoplifting smashing cars wing mirrors to smashing up a primary school, burning down the cricket club shed, and another building in the same week. He's out of control now. Maybe if he'd been tasered when he ran amok the first time, he wouldn't have committed arson

tasering, obviously.

I can't understand why a) an eleven year old wasn't already fed and in bed at that hour and b) anyone would expect a Burger King, or anything else, to be open beyond 11pm in Scotland.

They were on holiday.

Oh, that will upset the yummies! Personally were I in Burger King and some scrote had a knife he was waving about I wouldn't care less if they used an Uzi, my safety as a law abiding citizen trumps his. Why are so many people on this site so supportive of this sort of behaviour, reaching immediately for their Thesaurus of excuses? When something tragic happens they are bleating Why wasn't something done before it got to this stage?

Angry? Me? No, I think that’s projection on your part. I was just intrigued because you’d had to disarm two kids that’s all. I appreciate you explaining why the situations had arisen in the course of your job/volunteering, thanks 😊

Well it's highly unlikely he'll tantrum and brandish a knife again. Job done.

Sounds good to me. With any luck he's learnt the lesson aged 11 and less likely to become a 21 year old lowlife making himself and others miserable.

Wear stab vests and masks.
Remove everyone else from the space.
Stab vests protect the torso only. Unless they wear a full stab suit they are at risk or serious injury or death. They cannot evacuste a whole caravan park with a knife weilding child running about.

De-escalate: use words and how you interact with the child to suggest they are safe and can drop the knife.
They calmly told him several times to drop the knife. Converstionally even. The child was clearly out of control.

Offer them a choice of safe ways out of the situation.
The child tried to run away. With a knife. They had to stop him at that point. For his own safety and that of others.

Use autism/PDA- sensitive approaches as it’s possible the child may need this
And in the meantime the child may be getting more agitated or may not have an neuroligcal disorder. Some children are just out of control due to shit parenting. There isn't time to do a full assessment when people are at risk of harm.

I would imagine if this incident happened in a school or a play park the responses would be completely different.

So many spelling mistakes 😫

It was only a butter knife why didn't the boy's mother disarm him herself? I am also baffled at the apparent belief that an weapon armed ND person is somehow less dangerous than an armed non ND person.

It seems that the boy has some disability. It was a butter knife, and he was highly unlikely to hurt anyone and was clearly a child in meltdown. I am horrified that anyone things that tasering him was acceptable.

Do you mean you think the whole country closes at 11pm? Cos we have a good number of 24 hour supermarkets and even a 24 hour McDonalds where I am in Scotland...

@furryfrontbottom though I agree a child that age should be in bed by that hour of course.

I agree. I bet he will think twice before pulling a stunt like that again!