6-Year-Old Sent To Mental Health Center For Throwing Tantrum At School

Feb 23, 2020 by apost team

Dealing with children who have special needs can offer challenges for both parents and school officials.

While many teachers work hard to ensure that these children are being well-cared for and given the best opportunities, one school system in Florida is being criticized for their poor handling of a situation with a six-year-old special-needs girl, where she was sent to a mental health institution without parental consent for apparent uncontrolled behavior in early February.

It all started when the Love Grove Elementary School contacted the police to come help with an out of control student named Nadia King.

According to them, the child was destroying the school’s property, acting out against the staff, and running wildly in and out of the school. The school’s social worker came to the aid of teachers and determined that it was time to contact authorities when the little girl was deemed a threat to both herself and others, reports Time. She was brought to the facility under the so-called Baker Act, which allows for people to be involuntarily institutionalized if they fit certain criteria of being mentally ill and posing serious bodily threat to themselves or others, under Florida state law.

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This is when the story takes a turn for the worse. Police arrived at the school and escorted the little girl out, delivering her to the River Point Behavioral Health center where she was put in for a 48-hour psychiatric evaluation.

All of this was done without the consent of her parents, and her mom didn’t even know until the child was already on her way to the facility.

Video footage taken by the officers reveals a child that looks completely unlike the out-of-control situation described by teachers. The little girl seems confused but normal, following the cops and holding their hands.

The police can be heard talking to each other in the video, commenting about the little girl looking fine and having nothing wrong with her. One officer even says that the child is very pleasant and suggested that it might be the school’s fault that they couldn’t deal with her.

While Nadia’s parents are understandably upset, the school is defending their actions and point out that the social worker is the one who made the ultimate decision to send her on for evaluation.

Reganel Reeves, who has been hired as the King family’s attorney, points out that the school should have let her mother have a chance to intervene before they took such serious action.

He claims that Nadia had already been diagnosed with ADHD and was being tested for autism before this incident happened, according to News4Jax. The family claims that Nadia has been traumatized by the entire event.

What do you think of the school’s decision to send this six-year-old into a mental health facility without the authorization of her parents? Let us hear your thoughts in the comment section below.