Girl, 13, gets detention for hugging two friends

MASCOUTAH, Ill. - Two hugs equals two days of detention for 13-year-old Megan Coulter.

The eighth-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friends Friday.

“I feel it is crazy,” said Megan, who was to serve her second detention Tuesday after classes at Mascoutah Middle School.

“I was just giving them a hug goodbye for the weekend,” she said.

Megan’s mother, Melissa Coulter, said the embraces weren’t even real hugs — just an arm around the shoulder and slight squeeze.

“It’s hilarious to the point of ridicule,” Coulter said. “I’m still dumbfounded that she’s having to do this.”

District Superintendent Sam McGowen said that he thinks the penalty is fair and that administrators in the school east of St. Louis were following policy in the student handbook.

It states: “Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved.”

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Comment: No, liars, it is NOT "in poor taste", it does NOT "reflect poor judgement", and it does NOT "bring discredit to the school" or "to the persons involved."

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Parents urge change in policy
Coulter said she and her husband told their daughter to go ahead and serve her detentions
because the only other option was a day of suspension for each skipped detention.

“We don’t agree with it, but I certainly don’t want her to get in more trouble,” Coulter said.

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Comment: No, don't risk anything to stand up for the truth - that might model behavior that would enable your children to grow up capable of resisting the Evil...

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The couple plan to attend the next school board meeting to ask board members to consider rewording the policy or be more specific in what is considered a display of affection.

“I’m just hoping the school board will open their eyes and just realize that maybe they shouldn’t be punishing us for hugs,” Megan said.

Ban on lingering hugs sparks dispute at Oregon school

BEND, Ore. (AP) — A 14-year-old girl received detention over a lingering hug she gave her boyfriend at school, infuriating her mother and putting school officials on the defensive.

School officials said they had warned Cazz Altomare that lingering hugging was unacceptable, but she continued to disobey the rule when she received the detention earlier this year.

Rules at Sky View Middle School in Bend permit "quick hello and goodbye hugs," but administrators said some students have been taking advantage of it.

"It's not like we are the hug Nazis," Laurie Gould, spokeswoman for the Bend-La Pine School District, said Monday. "Kids hug, they hug hello and they hug goodbye, but if you take it farther, you make people uncomfortable."

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Comment: People? Which people exactly? And on what basis are they uncomfortable about hugging? How about if they learn how to take care of their own feelings?

Is everything that makes someone "uncomfortable" to be banned? How about the truth? That makes some people uncomfortable.

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Cazz got detention after giving her boyfriend a protracted hug in the hallway at Sky View Middle School in Bend.

Her mother, Leslee Swanson, was infuriated by the punishment. When she went to pick her daughter up from detention, she gave her a good, hard hug.

"I'm trying to understand what's wrong with a hug," Swanson, 42, said in a story Sunday in The Bulletin of Bend. People should not "blindly accept these fundamental rights being taken away from them," she said.

Gould said "usually kids don't get detention just for hugging."

All middle schools in the Bend-La Pine district restrict hugging to some degree, as well as hand-holding and some other forms of physical affection.

"Really, all we're trying to do is create an environment that's focused on learning, and learning proper manners is part of that," said Dave Haack, the principal of Cascade Middle School, also in Bend.

Students only end up with detention after repeated warnings earlier this year, he said.

Outside Pilot Butte Middle School on a recent lunch break, two seventh-grade girls said they disagreed with the policies.

"I think we should be able to hold hands or hug at least," said Annie Wilson, 12. "Because it's not doing anything bad."

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Comment: So important is caring touch for humans, we should view this "crackdown" on hugging as an attack on the human race.

Example 1

At the beginning of the last century, the mortality among children under two years of age, living in orphanages in Europe and in North America, was almost 100 per cent. These children were being well taken care of physically. They had all the food and health care they needed. Yet they died in their hundreds.

Their physical needs were being taken care of but no one was allowed to touch them. At that time, it was thought that cuddling infants would spread infections and make children morally weak.

Example 2

The soothing effect of the touch could be seen in scans of areas deep in the brain that are involved in registering emotional and physical alarm...

But the moment that they felt their husbands' hands -- the men reached into the imaging machine -- each woman's activity level plunged in all the body's regions gearing up for the threat...

But this system often becomes overactive in situations that are nagging but not life threatening, such as worries over relationships, deadlines, money or homework.

Example 3

So basic a human need is touch that neither children nor adults can live without it. Children who live in abusive homes and who are deprived of touch, have been known to wither and die. The need for touch is real, and persists throughout our lives.

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