I wrote about this issue about a year ago (Hot Sauce Mom). In that case, the mom who gave the hot sauce treatment was found guilty. This time, the judge sided with the teacher.
I have mixed feelings about this. In principle, I am still against discipline by hot sauce. However, in this case, I’m not sure if it was disciplinary or just one type of ‘aversion therapy,’ akin to putting something nasty on a child’s thumbs to prevent thumb sucking.
I still don’t like it, but I do see that it might be useful in some contexts — especially if other methods have been used to prevent crayon eating and if the crayons are causing the child to have digestive problems. One has to balance the positive and negative of each choice, just as in prescribing drugs. I take several meds that have much worse side effects than hot sauce!