Understanding Kids Who Want to Attack

April 2, 2008— -- A group of third graders at Center Elementary School in Waycross, Ga., wanted to attack their teacher because, police said, they were mad at her after she reprimanded a student for standing on a chair.

The 8-, 9- and 10-year-olds hatched their own plan to knock the teacher unconscious with a paperweight, bind her with toy handcuffs and duct tape, and then stab her with a steak knife, police said.

Police believe the youngsters even decided their roles, assigning one child to cover the windows, while another would clean up after the attack.

"This could've been dangerous -- extremely -- and that's what I want people to understand," Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said.

The three students who brought the paperweight, the cuffs and the tape have been arrested.

But educators and parents alike are asking how third graders could have come up with such a frightening plan.

"All you have to do, dare I say, is turn on television, look at video games, watch the movies that they're watching, and those plots are there," said William Pollack, an assistant clinical professor at the Harvard Medical School department of psychiatry.

Today, the school superintendent acknowledged people have a wide range of opinions on what the students were thinking from "kids playing make believe -- all the way to the serious plan to do harm."

Psychologists say there's no way to know what triggered these children without sitting across from them and reaching out to them.

"We all want to have some form of attention to be liked," child psychologist Jeffrey Kassinove said. "If a child or adult is not getting positive attention, they'll look for negative attention."

The punishment itself -- they warn -- will not solve the problem.

"It just stops it -- stops it for the moment," Kassinove said.

The important part, he said, is for both the parents and the children involved to receive counseling, rather than treating the students as bad or evil.

Experts say you can change the behavior of a child, even of one who gets involved with a plot like the one the Georgia students allegedly hatched.

"In a way it's easier to change behavior when they're younger, but it's more upsetting to see it happening at such a young age," Pollack said.