Originally published at: A Texas kindergarten teacher resigns after doping students with melatonin gummies | Boing Boing
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She needs to be kept away from children, never to “teach” again.
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Jeez, this shit should stay back in the past where it belongs.
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I don’t have much useful to say on the individual moral issue of this dangerous, abusive person except “you hurt kids, go to jail”
Stucturally, this does make me think about how in our school system, constantly under attack for defunding and dismantling, special education takes particularly hard hits, and is an incredibly difficult and often thankless position that wears people down (with most it doesn’t wear them down to an abuser, just their personal last straw)
New York, for example, does a piss-poor job of separating out different conditions that require radically different expertise and interventions. So you get kids prone to violent outbursts in a room all day with kids with severe developmental delays and anxiety.
Least-restrictive settings are also a positive, keeping kids from being ghettoized, but without the proper funded supports to classroom teachers, it’s just a fig-leaf for cost cutting and saving of classroom space.
This lady, go to jail. Politicians attacking school resources, also go to jail.
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Giving someone unnecessary medicine when they don’t know about it is just wrong and unacceptable, doubly so when it’s children.
“At least,” I thought, “it was just melatonin, so it should be harmless.”
And then I read those quotes, and found out that it might very well not be harmless after all.
I hope this teacher gets a stiff sentence for endangering those children.
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Benedryl is pretty harmless too. Except
Marian Fraser sentenced 50 years for Benadryl baby death | kcentv.com
Same state even! Dosing other people (or their children) with anything against their will or consent is wrong. (I’m gonna get flack about “chemo in woo meister’s kids” but yes, there are exceptions to every rule.)
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What baffles me is that melatonin wouldn’t even work for calming. That’s not what it does even in neurotypical children given appropriate doses at appropriate times (and after consultation with a pediatrician).
We’ve used a kid dose made by a reputable manufacturer after clearing it with our kid’s pediatrician. It makes her tired and if she can’t sleep she doesn’t calm down. She gets grumpy and then melts down. And that’s a half-dose.
So it was useless as well as dangerous. Adult doses can be too much for adults. The way the child’s behavior described sounds like an adult dose
I couldn’t find where the district reported her to the teacher licensing agency. That needs to happen as well as DFPS. I hope she ends up on the DFPS bad actor list
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Melatonin is a signal to the internal clock, telling it what bedtime is. It works best when a very small dose is taken at the same time each day, to stabilize the clock against the forces of daily life that tend to cause drift.
Taking it in the daytime is only going to make it more difficult to sleep at night, likely worsening any compliance issues over the the next days.
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Regardless of any other condition, this is a 5-year old. Focus is not always possible when the grown-ups want.
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So much this! I frequently have to explain the normal attention span of a 5 yo is measured in milliseconds! No, I won’t start your 3yo on ADHD meds, no, your 5yo does not have oppositional defiant disorder. When did we forget what kids are actually like?
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Kind of surprised that the kid was lethargic. Maybe the thc gummies got mixed up with the melatonin ones?
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As soon as we become adults, I’m guessing… and double so when we have our own kids.
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I saw a video not too long ago about a kid who had 180 melatonin gummies for lunch, after his mom gave him a bag of them (on purpose so that he wouldn’t be so hyper active, though she didn’t mean for him to eat the whole bag at once.)
This kid survived ok, but it can have some serious health consequences, though I don’t think anyone has died yet.
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Yeah, I was ‘Oh my stars, it worked!’ I’d be thrilled if she found a way to make 1/8 of a gummi more desirable than a whole one, but it’s moot. Did she not already have an authorization to give prize snacks? This is a well sanded door that leads to naturally sweetened…uh, I guess cooked pinto beans or basil leaves or something else awful but unlikely to elicit allergy.
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… only my apathy keeps my defiance in check
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I’d be more lethargic if I wasn’t so apathetic.
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That could be our motto if anyone cares.
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The first rule of apathetic club is don’t get worked up over apathetic club.
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Is it worth even writing them down?
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