Finger Guns

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Ok, this post doesn't have anything to do with ASD other than it involves an incident that happened to my son. While playing with another student at school (3rd grade), he made a "finger gun". Not in a threatening way; the other child was not upset by it. The teacher saw and took my son out of the classroom, told him what he did was illegal, and made him cry. Then she got the principal involved, who came out to my car when I picked DS up from school. She basically threatened to kick him out of school.
My question is: do schools usually react this way? Is this "normal"?

I don't know if this is the new normal, but I have seen anecdotal references to this kind of thing like the infamous "pop tart gun" made by a kid by chewing a pop tart into a gun shape. My husband tends to show them to me to show me how things are going crazy in the world.

I would guess though, that it is still not normal, but there is more of this going on just due to the general climate of "zero tolerance." Zero tolerance seems to mainly be regarding stupid things, but I bet bullies still get a way with actual, real damaging acts. I would scour your school district's student handbook (which they may post online) and see what you can find in there. If it is private school, they can probably do what they want. If your child is in public school you probably have some protections especially if your child has an IEP. Either way, you will have to explain this stupidity to your child.

Modern schools are proof that hysteria and insanity can be collective phenomena. Here is one of my favorite examples from a few years back:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2000 ... oy-lawyers

Yes, zero tolerance has taken things to a whole new level of ridiculousness at school. My son is currently going through a preoccupation with wars/conflicts at a historical level. He got in trouble for talking about cannons and how they work at school. My husband is in he military, as is his brother, who was injured in Afghanistan last year. My son got in trouble for telling the other students that my brother in law got blown up (which is a fact) and survived. Ridiculous.

Sadly, schools have gone way too far with the zero violence policy. Back when I was a kid, it was not made into a big deal to have a finger gun. No one reacted that extreme to a finger gun. Kids have gotten suspended for drawing a gun or making a pop tart into a gun shape and now finger guns. I think it all started back when I was in 6th grade and because of school shootings that have gone on that year, the one in Arkansas and then down in Springfield, OR a 15 year old shoots his parents and goes to school and shoots some people and after that, saying you want to kill someone is taken seriously or talking about a gun or expressing your anger about wanting to bring a gun to school and shoot everyone. Then after that I noticed more and more school shootings and yes people do take this stuff seriously. But I think it has gone too far like about the pop tart gun or a drawing or a finger gun. I bet a student would get suspended for taking a cap gun to school and playing with it at recess or what about taking a nurf gun to school for show and tell or a water pistol.

Just to make the situation even more bizarre, DS's teacher keeps a tub of Legos in the classroom. My son loves playing with them because there are guns, cannons, and a missile launcher! How is THAT acceptable if a finger gun is not?
If they say anything more to him, I'm going to tell them he got the idea from the toy weapons his teacher provided.
Maybe I'll get distraught and say they've damaged him emotionally.

wow thats ridiculous
makes me glad im not in school anymore if I was I would probably in jail my notebooks were full of drawing of guns and battles

My neighbor's son went to a preschool that didn't allow boys to pretend to be superheroes -- not only for Halloween costumes, but also forbid them from putting up the hood on a jacket and pretending to fly!

What? If a kid can't pretend to be a Ninja, who is? My goodness!

This has to do with liberal ideologies being taught in school one of the reasons they do this is to teach children they need protection from an outside source rather than they learn to protect themselves government good you bad.

I doubt it is ideology. I live in a very conservative area that still has corporal punishment, and a number of other traditionally conservative things going on in our public schools. It has to do with general over caution over the wrong things and a fear of lawsuits more than anything else, me thinks.

Nothing wrong with corporal punishment had it in my school growing up never was a bad thing never really hurt anyone. Then our school started losing money had to get major government help they brought their people in school went to hell after that. My mother had been a teacher for almost 40 years couldn't deal with all the problems that came along with there crazy demands with problem students. No real discipline left in schools after that either also like what the OP has pointed out same thing happened to our school crazy reasons for wanting to get rid of kids that had nothing to do with real behavioral problems. The school now has gotten worse year after year even had a female teacher get caught with male student. Anyone with any ability to take their kids to a different school has the others wish they could or just don't care.

I don't agree with corporal punishment in schools. Who are they to hit my kid??? I grew up in an area that had it and probably still has it. The only time I got paddled I was actually innocent. Nice. (Of course, I was absolutely awful in general so it wasn't entirely undeserved). My brother was paddled to an abusive level by one teacher. Not good.

However, the finger gun thing. That's absolutely crazy. The school overreacted. I would write a strongly worded letter. Really. It's not acceptable for an adult to treat a child that way. If it's against the rules, ok I don't agree, but I can accept and would back up the rule. But there's no excuse for their crazy over-reaction.

Yeah,I don't believe in corporal punishment, either. When my kid was in public school, I always "opted him out," as luckily that was an option or I would have been home schooling even sooner.

I only mentioned it to say that even the conservative parts of the country get crazy over pretend guns and zero tolerance and that I don't personally see a connection between ideology and this type of idiocy. They want kids to be "pro-social" b/c of law suits and also I think b/c they think pro-social kids are more docile, and easier to manage. My son did not get into trouble for weapons, but he did get into trouble for snuggling his classmates when he was scared or overwhelmed.

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The same unrealistic rules are in my son's student handbook. He does things like that but he's also in a special class so hopefully there's some leniency there. I hope it never becomes an issue but worry that it will.