Primary School Essay Lands Dad In Jail

I’m not sure which part is more depressing: that a father would shoot his son with a BB gun or that the boy would think it normal to write about in a school essay.

A Wisconsin nine-year-old related the day his father shot him in the buttocks for not moving out from in front of the TV screen in an essay for his teacher; and the teacher called in police to investigate the boy’s father.

The dad, David J. Peschl, was subsequently arrested on a felony count of child abuse. He admits to the incident, but says it wasn’t malicious or even a form of discipline. It was “horseplay,” he says, and he regretted it immediately after it happened. Regretted it, maybe, because he realised he’d end up in jail?

The little boy apparently wrote in the essay that the moment was the “most painful
thing I ever felt in my life,” and says his mother could hear him screaming from the road. His father says the wording of the essay doesn’t sound like his son, inferring that the boy had “help” from a teacher in crafting the piece. Although I agree kids embellish, it’s not hard to imagine a nine-year-old saying the time his father shot him in the behind with a BB gun was the worst moment of his life. He was shot… with a BB gun… by his father.

That’s not horseplay. Horseplay is wrestling a child to the ground and giving them a noogie. Horseplay is tickling them until they move out from in front of the TV. Horseplay is throwing a blanket over their head and yelling “now you can’t see the TV either” or something equally silly. Shooting them in the butt with a BB gun? That’s simply cruel – and I dare say abusive (hey, police agree – look at the charge).

It’s sad that a father would do this to his child, but a small part of me is even sadder that the child thought this was normal. That of all the moments in his life, he thought of this one to write about for a school essay – as if it were just another moment like any other.

Or do you think this was a simple cry for help? That the nine-year-old was too afraid to speak about this in words to his teacher, so he wrote through the pain to share his tale?

Image: Kids.Indianeducation (not the boy in the story)