'Tough Love' Preschools to Install Maximum Security Time-out Rooms

Bea Leary
La Lune de la presse internationale

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

In a progressive move toward a safer society, a new chain of private preschools around the United States announced Monday that it would install maximum-security time-out rooms for toddlers and small children up to 5 years of age.

The installations, complete with barbed wire, solitary confinement cells and laser perimeter detection, are intended to prepare children for long-term insertion into society as a whole.

Conservative parent groups applauded the decision, calling it "a sensible move in an unpredictable and unforgiving world," and saying that it would weed out "the bad elements" as soon as they began to show themselves.

"We intend to use the maximum security time-out room for all time-outs ranging from five minutes to a maximum, full-day sentence," said preschool director Emmanuel Lerner. "This shows the children that we're serious about nipping problem behavior in the bud before it becomes ingrained and institutionalized. Of course this means depriving the kids of the necessary love and affection they require to grow and flourish, but that way they are ready to adapt to this form of correctional reaction later in life."

Prison sentences have of course increased dramatically in length in the United States since the 1970's, and the prison population is now the largest in the world with more than 1 in 100 American adults incarcerated or on parole. Tough Love Preschools intend to prepare today's children for the inevitable development of this trend. At current rates, about 25% of Americans, or roughly 75 million, should be imprisoned at some point during the 21st century.

"We intend to target these problem kids for time outs. We need to exclude those young individuals who are thinking incorrectly, expressing themselves too loudly or in a unique, ungrouplike fashion, as well as those who prefer inter-relational development skills over materialistic possession of toys and such. Conformity is the goal of course, with acquisition of material possessions through coercion and brute force being a close second. We know without love and attention human beings, and mammals in general, become ill and die," said Lerner. "May as well get the kids used to that as young as possible and use it to our advantage."

Treating toddlers and young children in the same fashion as adults has come under some criticism by fringe citizens' groups, however. They maintain that the children's brains have not yet developed to a point that they will understand why they are being punished, so it is unfair to apply the same standards to them as to mature individuals.

"That's patently false," commented Lerner. "Many adults don't have mature brains either. You don't punish the person, you punish the act. And Tough Love Inc. deems what acts are appropriate, just like in society. The little ones have no say. There's no reason to try to understand anything beyond that."

This move, along with states' recent decision to un-execute the innocent, shows a new trend towards proactive solutions that will eliminate correctional and behavioral problems throughout modern American society. According to their mission statement Tough Love Preschools Inc. intends to "produce the parents of tomorrow through means of intuitive behavior correction and positive-reinforcement withdrawal through basic humiliation and isolation techniques."

Parents will be able to sign their children up starting next week. Ethnic, racial and sexual minorities may apply for a discount.