By Deanna L. Adams The children sat quietly in their first grade
classroom completing a Thanksgiving coloring project. Most of
the students at age 6 needed to improve their fine motor
coordination, so sometimes coloring within the lines represented
a challenge. When the brown crayon Megan used to color her
turkey rolled over the line, she believed that her turkey was
ruined. A disaster ensued. Megan uncontrollably leaped out of
her seat and grabbed the box of crayons that lay on her desk. In
anger, she screamed and threw the crayons one by one into the
classroom wall with great force. Since incidents like this had
previously occurred, the teacher, Mrs. Hill, was prepared. She
used the school contact system and summoned the security guard.
Within minutes, Megan was removed from the classroom and made to
sit outside the principal’s office, as she had done many times
before. Here she remained for the next 90 minutes until the
principal believed that she was calm enough to return to class.
As the months of the sc