The Moon Boots Parents

Anyone recall Moon Boots? (Our frigid temperatures have me perseverating on winter wear!) They were all the rage in the 1970s and I absolutely had to have a pair. My parents reluctantly caved despite the fact that the Moon Boots fad was expensive and I’m sure they would rather I wore my brother’s hand-me-down snowmobile boots. After several months, the fad faded and wearing said Moon Boots (picture puffy blue and white appendages) would have been a severe fashion faux pas. Needless to say, my mom and dad were not pleased. But I had learned a valuable lesson - I had truly loving parents.

Some children (too many?) have parents who indulge their every wish. (In case you’re wondering, my family didn’t go THAT far. Several years later I did NOT get a pair of Guess jeans, even though I begged!)

Then there are parents who wish they could do more for their kids.

I have been reading about those parents this week as I continue working on one of my assignments in the House Committee on Education and Labor. The Congressman I work for, Representative George Miller of California, recently announced his intent to host a hearing about the severe and often secretive abuse of students in our public schools.

Gathering information for this proposed hearing is my task – one which has been unexpectedly difficult. Not due to the work, but the content itself. The stories are heart-wrenching; especially when some of the children involved cannot speak, are abused by trusted school staff repeatedly and are as young as five years old. Often their parents are never informed.


One story left me in tears at my desk – children, who at taxpayer expense, are forced to wear battery packs at a New York publicly funded school. They are sent an electric shock by remote control for the slightest infraction (think throwing paper in class.) (You can read about “School of Shock” at Mother Jones.) Eight states are sending children of all ages with autism, intellectual disabilities and emotional disturbance to be educated here. The “science” and the school’s proponents say the shocks will eventually lead to social compliance. Some students have been receiving shocks for years. In one day alone, one student received more than 5000 shocks.

Despite repeated attempts and lawsuits to shut this “school” down, it remains open. Why? In large part because of parent support and desperation.

In many states like New York, the public schools and systems that should support children with extreme behaviors and their families are so deteriorated that parents have few if any choices. In New Jersey, parents face a particularly agonizing decision - sign a mandatory form that allows alternative schools to use seclusion and restraint disciplinary methods on the child or put him or her on the street.

Lest you think this doesn’t happen in your neighborhood school or is only about "extreme kids", think again. A good friend showed up to retrieve her kindergartner for a dentist appointment only to discover he wasn’t in class - he was down the hall in a seclusion room she hadn’t known existed. A five-year-old, with autism and an anxiety disorder, shut in a room to make him learn to “behave.”

Another friend talks about the day her daughter with an intellectual disability (a third grader at the time) came home with unexplained bruises on her arm. (They had come from an aide.) One extraordinary boy I know asked his parents whether they could tell his teachers to “please not hurt me” when they held him down.

While the research on seclusion rooms (often small locked closets without windows), shows they are not typically physically harmful, they can cause severe psychological damage. Meanwhile, the use of restraints in schools has had tragic results.

Perhaps most appalling is the story of a 7-year-old Wisconsin girl, Angellika Arndt, who was reprimanded for blowing bubbles in her milk. Two adults pinned her to the floor face down for 23 minutes. She died. This particular “prone restraint hold” was and is legal in public schools throughout Wisconsin and the United States – even though it has proven deadly more than once.

When we parents send our children to school we expect them, at a minimum, to be safe. Not to come home with bruises … or not come home at all. When children have fewer protection rights than adults in public facilities, there is clearly something wrong. When parents have absolutely no choices in how to help their children, that is criminal.

And yet, parents without options make desperate decisions. They sign the forms because they don’t know what else to do. They send their kids off to school and tell them it will be o.k.

As much we may want to grant our child’s every wish, it may not be possible. Fortunately, or unfortunately, in most cases it is not the end of the world.

Lisa Pugh is the 2009 Kennedy Foundation Public Policy Fellow. She will work on disability public policy for the House Committee on Education and Labor during the 111th Congress and is being sponsored by The Arc Wisconsin. She will live for one year with her family in Washington and return to her home in Madison, Wisconsin to share what she’s learned in January 2010.