Elephants definitely do mourn their dead friends, often returning to the places where another elephant that they had known died. There have been many studies researching this behavior. From what I've seen there is no scientific hypothesis that can explain this behavior other than elephants do in fact experience grief,…

Because we have no external view. This would be one from an allegedly sentient creature. I'm not saying the answer is definitive I'm just sayin' it would be the first of its kind.

Sounds like Chuck doesn't know much about Gorillas and didn't bother to check. They do know about death and they do get sad about it. Even dogs do that and Gorillas are dramatically more human-like in every sense. Tell the Gorilla. Tell her all about it. Of course Koko has feelings. Tell her about Jesus and the…

I'm not Isha's biggest fan, or even a mild supporter, but yet I recognized the Tongue-In-Cheek aspect of of this.

you have no sense of humor do you? Are you one of those robots who have achieved singularity?

Oh, I hate these people. Damn it, I gained fifty fucking pounds, and all of that on a nutritionist prescribed diet to manage my gestational diabetes. I asked if I should work out: no, the complications made it so that I needed to be under as little physical stress as possible. Should I eat differently? No, I needed…

We are firmly stuck in the land of "what if" with him right now, and more than a few rambling stories have started with "what if I had a death ray" or "what if I had a giant laser beam".

The first time I ever felt suicidal was when I was 6. It's definitely a real thing that happens. However this situation was absolutely blown out of proportion.

I'm currently in the process of getting my Early Childhood Education degree. The children I currently work with make guns out of EVERYTHING. Nothing in my books or in the classes I've taken thus far makes me think they need to be put on a "keep yourself safe" contract. I honestly think the administrators are the ones…

Curious to know what you think that point may be?

Yeah, I assumed this was less of a "the administrators actually thought this was the appropriate thing to do" and more of a "we don't have very many options" or "this was the rule on the rulebook and we want to follow protocol so we don't have any loose ends, even if it's not the most rational thing".

whoa, let's not scare the poor woman. I'd say with a little therapy in a quality institution, they can probably stop her before she graduates to durians and things get real.

I have no doubt 5 year olds can feel depressed and suicidal. But because they have those feelings they still would not know what the words mean. Having feelings and knowing what the words are that relates to those feelings would be two different things.

In an hour of playing tinker-toys last night, my 6 year old created a "head smasher", a "mega-chopper", and a "double spiker bow and arrow". If this kid needs therapy, mine must need an institution.

Clearly your daughter is a high-functioning psychopath. If she'd chosen a softer fruit to emulate, I'd say she's fine, but pineapples are a textbook early indicator.

This school is across the street from me. It's where I went to elementary school and where we planned on sending our daughter in a few years. I'm mortified that this is how they now operate. It's just so ridiculously wrong, I can't wrap my brain around it.

Seriously. What ever happened to sitting the kid down and explaining why gun games are not allowed at the school, then calling home to make sure the parent knows to reinforce the lesson?

It's not impossible for a 5-year-old to be suicidal (sadly), but there's no way a psychiatric evaluation should be done without notification and approval of the parents. Also, having a five-year-old sign something by themselves is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Depression is an increasing problem in young children. It is entirely possible for kids 5 or even younger to be suicidal. However, saying "pew pew" is not a symptom and there is such a thing as age-appropriate screening for kids. It's like they downloaded some poorly written screening tool designed for high school…

This is such bullshit. The kid I nanny and I play Star Wars and shoot lasers at each other (saying "pew pew" as we do it) all the time! And even if that's behavior more appropriate for playtime at home than in the classroom, there are better ways of handling it. This was an incredibly stupid thing to make a five year…