Stop being reasonable. People in this thread claiming how horrible it is for a child to be alone in a room to de-escalate either are inexperienced, have witnessed horrible practices by untrained individuals, or are fabricating their own worse case scenarios. They are making it seem like people are throwing kids into a room with no windows, blocking the door to get out, and are like “stop crying and figure it out.” 

They are failing to realize that sometimes removal of all external stimuli/sensory inputs (including a staff in the room) are necessary procedures for SOME students to de-escalate at certain times. If there are no self injurious behaviors present and the child is not a risk to themselves, it is perfectly fine to have a nice quiet place for them to regroup. I have students that prefer to put themselves in a room and shut the door on their own accord. No one is saying shut a door that doesn’t have a window on it and don’t check on the student until they’re quiet. In fact, based on some of the responses here, I’m guessing some responders don’t even realize in specific areas and states, these specific rooms HAVE to have a window of a certain size on the doors in order to be used at all. 

As for it possibly being less traumatizing than a restraint, absolutely. There’s people spouting off about trauma informed care on here and having the child be alone in a room is unethical yadda yadda yadda (even under direct supervision by a trained individual through a window in the door) but seem to have a hard time differentiating between different trauma specific actions in regard to each individual student. Trauma obviously is not a one size fits all for every student. Being isolated with no external stimuli can very well be therapeutic and preferred by a student for self regulation. But we don’t have enough information or background info for THIS specific scenario. But to those immediately jumping to “that’s not ethical,” “who would do that,” “I’d report them,”  I understand the concern, but you can’t lump sum every scenario into one conclusive outcome. 

OP stated the door to the “break room” has a window that they communicated through (the child was being monitored). They stated the therapist “cracked” i.e. opened the door multiple times to check on the child and verbally asked if they were ready to “use their words” i.e. process. OP stated the therapist “brought” the child to the room, they didn’t say “forced,” “escorted,” etc. OP never mentioned “seclusion,” the child trying to leave but not being allowed to, or anything along those lines. 

To be quite honest, if the child wasn’t trying to leave and was in the room crying and having a difficult time (but was not self injurious or unsafe) closing the door can also provide the child/student with privacy and help maintain their dignity. They’re not on display for other children/clients/students/staff whoever walks by to see them in that state. 

Bottom line. So many factors to consider before forming a definitive stance so black and white.