This is very common. I am not advocating it at all. Most ED classrooms have a room like that to calm the children down. It should only be used for about 5 - 30 minutes. Anything more is horrible. Sometimes children get to the point of being a danger to themselves and staff. The padded rooms even protect them. I know places where staff have been bit, kicked and one story where a pregnant woman lost her baby at 6 months (she shouldn't have been in that situation anyways).
Most kids calm down. When I was visiting a local ED program just two months ago, I saw a child get placed in their. Amazingly, the child wasn't fighting it. He was asked if he felt like he needed to go in the room and he nodded. He went in there for 15 minutes and then seemed better. In that room, however, the kids can also go into a large tent to calm down if they are not hitting and kicking others.
The rooms should not be dirty. They should not feel cold. They should have relaxing lights. They should never ever be used as a punishment. The kids should eventually learn how to self monitor and state when they feel like they either need that room or a tent. Sometimes they can't do that due to going into a rage (from 1 - 10 in a matter of seconds), so they need some assistance going into the room. The rooms really should NOT have a door in them! I like the idea of having some pillows in their. Some kids do tear those pillows apart but I am sure they make strong pillows. Even though it ends of working for a lot of kids given how it is done and how the room looks, some kids freak out with having the door closed THUS it causes a strong negative association with all closed doors, especially locked ones.
There should never be rooms like that when the child is not given a one to one aide to FIRST assist with those behaviors. If the child doesn't have a one to one aide, then the child is likely to be in their longer than the top 20 - 30 minutes. The one to one aide doesn't go into the room but does assist with the before and after.
14 Jun 2009, 4:49 pm
