Discipline isn't meant to traumatize young minds, but.......

Here we go again.

In Ionia, Michigan, a 6 year old boy was suspended from school for 2 days for doing something a lot of kids have done for generations. He formed a gun with his thumb & forefinger, and pointed it at another child. School officials claim the child was warned several times this school year about it, but he didn't heed the warnings, and on Wednesday, they decided to take action.

The boy is in kindergarten, and as his mother is quoted as saying, he doesn't understand any of the fuss. Once again, we have school faculty over-reacting to something that was once acceptable behavior for kids at that age. After all, what is one of the first games a child learns to play at school? Cops & robbers. With no toys, kids will form guns with their hands. It's just natural. In this day and age, they're trying to discourage children from even pretending to have a gun. What is wrong with using imagination? It's a tool all of us have had since our youth.

I get what they're trying to do, but they're aiming too low. Kindergarteners aren't ready to deal with this sort of thing. You wait until they get to the 3rd or 4th grade before you start putting restrictions on imaginary gunplay or other forms of pretend violence. Instead, these overzealous school principals are risking giving these kids emotional scars that will be carried for years to come. Loosen up!