just plain wrong

There's a local boy who's six. He has been in the news lately because he's been suspended from school for a few days for "sexual harrassment." All the if-it-bleeds-it-leads news outlets have focused on the category for which he's being punished. There's a great deal of debate about whether a six-year old even knows what sexual harrassment is. In fact, his mother says that she doesn't know what he's done wrong and she doesn't know how to explain it to him.

In addition, the little boy doesn't want to go back to school because "they're mean to him there." His mother refuses to send him back to school until he's transferred because she doesn't feel that he can get fair treatment anywhere in that particular school. (His school has offered to put him in a different class, which isn't good enough.)

From the little I've read, the little boy put his hand down the pants of a little girl and "touched her skin". I'm not an expert on child behavior, but I do suspect that most little boys know not to do that, and most little boys' mothers know how to explain how to behave appropriately in that regard.

This is a good teaching moment for media outlets. Regardless of what it's called -- harrassment, bullying, inappropriate behavior -- it seems like a good time to remind children and parents of acceptable behavior and what to do in the case that someone is treated to that behavior. But no, the news outlets are turning themselves inside out trying to determine whether one can call it "sexual harrassment." To date, I haven't heard anyone say that the little boy's behavior is wrong. Nor have I heard one iota of concern expressed for the little girl, who was upset enough to report the behavior, one presumes.

One wonders if this is a first offense, or if the little boy is in the habit of putting his hands down little girls' pants. One wonders if this little boy was "just curious" or if he's on his way to becoming a bully. One wonders why the mother can't figure out what her little boy did wrong, and if she had a little girl, whether she'd be better able to understand. But of course, the news media never delve into these sorts of questions, the ones that are far more interesting to me.