It doesn’t seem fair to punish a child of 5 or 6 for what he or she has said or for playing cops and robbers. They are only role playing, imitating what they have watched. Children absorb so much from their environment, our environment, and we want them to be accountable for it. If we are going to punish someone let it be the parents who allow their children to watch these less than desirable shows. Better yet, let’s punish the stations that broadcast them. But then, even children who are brought up in the best of environments and are monitored in what they watch, say and do things they don’t really mean.

I don’t claim to know the answers but as a child care provider for many years I do see how important role playing is to children and how very impressionable they can be. I know because of the climate of our society, as stated in the article about the kindergartners in New Jersey being suspended for playing cops and robbers, that we do need to take some kind of action but it seems to me there could be a better way to address this problem instead of traumatizing a kindergartner by suspending him or her when they don’t even realize they’ve done anything wrong. The innocent young children are not the problem. Sharie Laveway Ashland