He's a Playa...

BROCKTON, Mass. (AP) - A six-year-old boy is learning a lesson on the meaning of sexual harassment long before he'll be able to spell it.

The Grade 1 pupil was suspended for three days for sexual harassment after he put two fingers inside a classmate's waistband, school officials told his mother, Berthena Dorinvil. The boy told her he only touched the girl's shirt after the girl touched him.

Experts said only in rare, troubling cases can children that young truly sexually harass one another.

"The connotation is you're getting some kind of sexual gratification, or wanting sexual gratification, or are putting pressure on for some kind of sexual gratification, when a six-year-old doesn't have that capacity," said Christopher Murray, a civil rights lawyer who has handled school discipline cases.

Dr. Elizabeth Berger, a Philadelphia-area child psychiatrist, said this case seems to be an overzealous attempt to ensure students feel safe in school after years in which society was not attentive enough. The boy's mother called the Jan. 30 suspension from Downey Elementary School outrageous. She said she can't even explain to her son what he did wrong because he's too young to understand.

"He doesn't know those things," she told the Enterprise newspaper of Brockton. "He's only six years old."

Brockton school officials have not commented beyond a statement from Supt. Basan Nembirkow that said sexual harassment charges are always investigated and officials are trained to deal with them. The Brockton School Committee defines sexual harassment among students, in part, as "uninvited physical contact such as touching, hugging, patting or pinching."

Grade 1 pupils who repeatedly touch classmates need to be disciplined and taught what's appropriate, said Nan Stein, a senior research scientist at the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College. But don't call the apparent discipline problem "sexual harassment" because Grade 1 pupils just don't understand it, she said.

(Hmmmmm....if he only got two fingers in her waistband, they probably interupted him.  Obviously, he was going for the shocker.  Lucky her...)