Kids in trouble for sexual harassment

WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) -- A "zero-tolerance" approach to sexual harassment has led to increasing numbers of complaints in elementary schools and even in nursery schools.

In one Texas case, a 4-year-old received an in-school suspension for pressing against an aide's breasts while he was hugging her, The Washington Post reports. A kindergarten student in Hagerstown, Md., was accused of harassment for allegedly pinching a little girl's rear end.

Virginia reported that 255 students were suspended from elementary schools last year for sexually offensive conduct and in Maryland, there were 166 suspensions, including three from pre-schools and 16 from kindergarten, the Post said.

Ted Feinberg, assistant director of the National Association of School Psychologists in Bethesda, Md., said that accusing 6-year-olds of sexual harassment "doesn't make sense to me." He said that he worked for 30 years in the schools without a real case of sexual harassment in elementary school.

"Kids can be exploratory in behavior, they can mimic what they see on TV," he told the Post.