• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Educators forced 7-year-old boy to eat his own vomit

A little more. It was on video:
Police said in the video, the victim can be seen sitting at a lunch table, eating his food until he stands and begins to choke on his food.

"Seymour is said to have allegedly advised the victim that if he vomited, he would be required to eat what he threw up," police said in a release, citing a probable cause affidavit.

The video shows the child proceeding to vomit onto a tray provided by another staff member and onto the table in front of him, according to the release.

"The victim was then provided a spoon by Kanipe and was compelled to eat some of his vomit," the release said. The staff also required the child to clean his vomit with paper towels, police said.
Click to expand...

In a statement released last week, Brownsburg Community Schools said staff learned about the incident on the evening of April 12 although the incident took place on February 16.

Barrett said one of the employees charged with failing to report revealed the incident, leading to an investigation.
Click to expand...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/26/indiana-special-ed-staff-who-made-student-eat-vomit-charged-police/11747240002/
 
Brainster said:
Strange story; I wonder if the kid made himself puke. Not trying to find an excuse for the educators--obviously their conduct was out of line no matter what a seven-year-old kid did--just trying to understand what possessed them.
Click to expand...


I think that's likely. A seven-year-old special needs student might have self-induced vomiting as a manipulative misbehavior, and the instructors who have to deal with the results would want him to stop doing it. Obviously, that's no excuse, but it's a context that would make the whole course of events slightly less than utterly insane.
 
Darat said:
Back in my day probably what we called social studies, a single lesson a week that educated in things like voting, how to write a cheque, how banks work, what a mortgage is all the bits and pieces of everyday life.
Click to expand...

We had something similar in my school, although I can't remember what we covered although I do remember enjoying it.
 
Thermal said:
In the States, we would call that class Home Economics. Also would teach basic cooking and cleaning and sewing. To this day, I maintain it turned out to be the most valuable course I took, for a 17 yo about to go out on their own.

Life Skills instructors in my neck of the woods are generally taking care of special needs students, teaching how to just make it through the day.

ETA: what we called Social Studies was a combination of Civics and contemporary American History.
Click to expand...

In the UK (circa my schooldays anyway) "Home Economics" was basically cooking lessons. Basic recipies, pasties, cakes etc. The economics was working out price/portion.

Off topic. I have an abiding memory of making carrot soup one day, being really proud of it and taking it home then my Mum telling me she'd put it in the gravy because "who wants to eat carrot soup".

It was good gravy though.

Funny the things that stick with you.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
In the UK (circa my schooldays anyway) "Home Economics" was basically cooking lessons. Basic recipies, pasties, cakes etc. The economics was working out price/portion.

Off topic. I have an abiding memory of making carrot soup one day, being really proud of it and taking it home then my Mum telling me she'd put it in the gravy because "who wants to eat carrot soup".

It was good gravy though.

Funny the things that stick with you.
Click to expand...

My US class focused on housework kind of stuff, too. The setting up a bank account and coming up with a household budget was pretty general, but broadly practical. Since it was an elective class, I'm pretty confident that the curriculum wasn't standardized statewide. I only took it because I figured the girl to boy ratio would be to my advantage, and my father didn't cook much more than pasta with Ragu and for some reason Navy bean soup.

I learned how to make pancakes, which the instructor used to teach about range temperature control and guaging when the dish was ready to be turned. I then aggravated the hell out of everyone in my home by making creative pancakes at every opportunity. Hot pepper pancakes. Fish pancakes. Navy bean soup pancakes. I count myself lucky that my dad didn't eventually break a frying pan over my head.
 
The classes probably had different names and regimes depending on the school district.

IIRC it was sort of a yearly thing, a whole continuum of classes that started in elementary school with lessons on things like reading maps and clocks and progressed by middle school to cooking and sewing and learning how to write checks. I remember making a football-shaped pillow and egg-in-a-basket in 6th grade.

I also remember that in the high school I went to, the class's formal name was not "Home Economics" but everyone called it "home ec" anyway.
 
As the father of a special needs child, if that ever happened to my son it would send me into a rage unlike anything the school had ever seen.
 
ToddH said:
As the father of a special needs child, if that ever happened to my son it would send me into a rage unlike anything the school had ever seen.
Click to expand...

Which would accomplish nothing.


Sitting down with the school district superintendent, accompanied by your lawyer and discussing a settlement might ease things.

I would talk about the years of therapy that will be needed to help your child get over this.

Of course the superintendent would not be able to make a decision on their on, but they would be able to recommend to the board that it would be best to settle this quickly and with as little publicity as possible.
 
Last edited:
Skeptical Greg said:
Which would accomplish nothing.


Sitting down with the school district superintendent, accompanied by your lawyer and discussing a settlement might ease things.

I would talk about the years of therapy that will be needed to help your child get over this.

Of course the superintendent would not be able to make a decision on their on, but they would be able to recommend to the board that it would be best to settle this quickly and with as little publicity as possible.
Click to expand...

The approach you describe sends the message "I am a reasonable person who can be bought off for a reasonable amount".

Flying off in an unholy rage sends the message "this guy is beyond reason and the payoff figure will also be over the top".
 
ToddH said:
As the father of a special needs child, if that ever happened to my son it would send me into a rage unlike anything the school had ever seen.
Click to expand...

...and you would do nothing more that look to sue. If I had a pound for every parent who hints at the retribution they would unleash, "if that happened to my child", (including me) I'd be up a couple o' thousand.
 
Wow y’all see the word “rage” and assume I’m headed down to the school to beat the crap out of everyone involved. I’ve already done that in the past and almost got myself arrested.

When my son was an infant and my wife at the time was out for a walk with him in his stroller someone rolled through a crosswalk. The car tire rolled over the front of the stroller and barely missed killing my son by inches. To make matters worse he left her sitting there to drag a broken stroller a mile back to the house. Turned out to be the president of our local bank. When I got the call I left work, got the stroller, went to the bank, marched past security into his office, and threw the stroller at him hitting him in the face. Security got to me before I could finish the job. Luckily for me he didn’t press charges. My guess is he didn’t want word getting out he almost ran over an infant.

So while I’d be filled with a good bit of rage it would manifest itself with me giving a number of folks a good ass chewing, both at the school and the school board meeting as well as possible legal action.
 
Brainster said:
Strange story; I wonder if the kid made himself puke. Not trying to find an excuse for the educators--obviously their conduct was out of line no matter what a seven-year-old kid did--just trying to understand what possessed them.
Click to expand...

Being a special needs teacher can be an unholy nightmare and often is. We have this idea that special needs kids are all serene and sweet when an awful lot of them are quite violent and impossible to control. Add to that the general thankless nature of the job and nobody taking the mental health challenges these teachers face seriously, and it's not hard to see why a teacher could completely snap.

It happens way more often than people think. Districts that don't support teachers because they see sped as a waste of funds are also the districts more prone to cover these things up.
 
Suddenly said:
Being a special needs teacher can be an unholy nightmare and often is. We have this idea that special needs kids are all serene and sweet when an awful lot of them are quite violent and impossible to control.
Click to expand...

No, we don't have that idea at all; but the notion that special needs kids are "quite violent and impossible control" is very often used to justify abusive treatment or at least assert that we shouldn't be as judgmental toward special needs teachers who do abusive things.

But that's a tangent. There is no "violent" behavior on the part of the kid being alleged here, and he very obviously wasn't impossible to control if the teachers were able to tell him to eat some of his own vomit and he just meekly complied with their request.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen...

Taking care of special needs kids should never include torture..

Special needs translates to special care...
Click to expand...

It's wild how when someone asks "how could someone do [something horrible]" any answer is attacked like it is condoning the horrible behavior. Not looking to deeper causes is a good way to make sure it continues to happen. It would mystify me that these causes aren't obvious, but I've had a kid at the business end of this sort of mistreatment and know that it isn't exactly novel. Granted the vomit thing is a bit over the top. Surprising but not shocking, basically.

When a school doesn't bother to address the conditions in the kitchen all that is left in the kitchen are cooks with no other options. It's a systemic issue. I'm in a county now where the sped program is absolutely wonderful and better than some private schools. The next county up is a mess with multiple teachers being charged criminally and a few more getting fired or "resigning." It's all about the administration. It isn't like it's in the water or that by some statistical quirk all the bad teachers are in one county.

People put in extremely stressful positions snap and do crazy things. Special education teachers are very often squeezed by administrators looking to trim costs and then criticized when they can't operate properly due to understaffing and other similar problems. They get kids with profound behavioral problems who attack other children and staff and best case they wind up spending all their time dealing with that and the other kids are getting nothing.

Then we don't bother to address the inevitable mental health issues or even screen for them until something awful happens.

Then, since most parties have an interest in keeping it quiet we can all pretend it almost never happens. The quiet conversations with superintendents, the settlements, maybe a teacher is reassigned or resigns, etc.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
You have to wonder where Suddenly got this notion..

.
Click to expand...

Mainly getting that impression from a lot of people and then generalizing.

I keep forgetting that some people get really weird about not falling within a generalization. So that's on me.

If it makes people feel better change "we" to "an awful lot of the people I've talked to" and move on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom