Parents' Lawsuit: Third-Grader Forced to Bathe at Texas School

[c.d.]

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/16/12258691-parents-lawsuit-third-grader-forced-to-bathe-at-texas-school?lite

c.d.

[Tom_Wescott]

Oh please. People just sue over everything. If the experience got the kid to value personal hygiene - something his parents obviously couldn't do - then he's the better for it. To say he was 'injured' by the experience is sheer fantasy. His mother is so money hungry that she doesn't appreciate how this law suit will embarrass her son and get him picked on more than any thing else will. He will be the stinky kid whose parents sued because he came home clean.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

I'm surprised noone made a joke about the French yet on this thread.

[Limehouse]

The school should have sent him home with a note asking the parents to call the school to discuss the problem. If that didn't work they should have called in social services.

[Errata]

You know, profound body odor at an early age can be a sign of about a dozen very serious/fatal illnesses. So glad the nurse (who is nothing of the sort) decided to scrub the kid down instead of checking with the parent's that he wasn't having any other symptoms, like emotional imbalance, fevers, blinding headaches. Bravo Texas.

[The Good Michael]

Oh please. People just sue over everything. If the experience got the kid to value personal hygiene - something his parents obviously couldn't do - then he's the better for it. To say he was 'injured' by the experience is sheer fantasy. His mother is so money hungry that she doesn't appreciate how this law suit will embarrass her son and get him picked on more than any thing else will. He will be the stinky kid whose parents sued because he came home clean.

She needed the money to buy some special Icelandic soap for "Stinky". He had allergies to all cleaning products save those made from a combination of Icelandic cod and hakarl (fermented shark meat). Thank God they will be getting the necessary funds.

[The Good Michael]

The school should have sent him home with a note asking the parents to call the school to discuss the problem. If that didn't work they should have called in social services.

Of course this is the logical and legal method. Forcing a kid to bathe will be something that haunts him for a long time, but a lawsuit? A bit much.

Mike

[Robert]

I would have thought the important point is : if he was washed by two school officials, were these male or female? It's one thing to tell a kid to have a bath, quite another to actually wash him.

[DrHopper]

I agree with the sentiment - stinky kid = unpleasant for all, and clearly the parents are too stupid to do anything about it. However, I do think the school overstepped the mark; a letter or meeting would have been the best approach. It is not the school's position, place or within its remit to randomly wash children - they are there to educate, not parent, despite being in loco parentis.

[Errata]

I would have thought the important point is : if he was washed by two school officials, were these male or female? It's one thing to tell a kid to have a bath, quite another to actually wash him.

They were female. I'm also not clear on what kind of elementary school has bathing facilities, or bath products. High schools have showers. What do elementary schools have? Did they bring in a metal washtub and scrub him down with liquid hand soap and paper towels? And they shoved cotton balls too far into his ears, and left them there. Which is quite frankly, idiotic.

[Tom_Wescott]

Wow, I guess it's worth if the kid was male and the people who bathed him were female. That makes it kinda creepy.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Errata]

Wow, I guess it's worth if the kid was male and the people who bathed him were female. That makes it kinda creepy.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

A situation more perfectly suited to create a complex binding up his regard for women and sexuality with his perceived cleanliness never existed.

This is how paraphilias are born. In 20 years this kid is going to have to pay someone to beat him with a scrub brush and call him a dirty boy. Or he going to become a compulsive washer and be physically unable to perform due to his absolute conviction that he will never be clean enough.

Seems only fair that the people involved in this incident should pay for this kids therapy. He's gonna need it.