The first rule of Toddler Fight Club is: you do not babble about Toddler Fight Club.
The second rule of Toddler Fight Club is: you DO NOT babble about Toddler Fight Club.
The third rule of Toddler Fight Club is: if this is your first day in daycare, you must fight.
Yech. My son just started pre-k last week. He’s already learned phrases like “I don’t want to let down my friends.” Which sounds both good, and ominous.
Firing them is a good first step, but I’d actually think criminal charges are appropriate too - telling kids to hit each other is no different than hitting kids themselves.
Who would win in a tasteless/illegal fight organized by someone who really should have known better, and should take a long hard look at themselves?
100 toddler sized bums, or 1 bum sized toddler?
Did anybody actually read the article? Nobody organized a fight club. Nobody told kids to fight.
It’s been seventeen years, and to this day you show no intention of going away.
Having a couple of toddlers at home, your use of bum needs to be clarified.
Both of my toddlers have toddler-sized bums; a bum-sized toddler would be awfully small…
“Fight Club” might be hyperbole, but they filmed kids fighting instead of breaking up a fight, and they definitely encouraged kids to hit each other.
<rolls eyes>@daneel, I knooooooow.</rolls eyes>
It’s just, you know, in conjunction with toddlers… you gots to be spasibick or I can’t undress-stand you. I’m done. I want to watch Nefflix. Or Disney Junior where the magic begins!
But more interesting are the questions 1) was money riding on the fight and 2) were they allowed to sharpen the spurs of their chosen toddler?
Meh. The fight ended without intervention, the girl got “scratches,” which means she was uninjured, and they’re three. Should the teachers have intervened, society says “of course” but what about just letting the kids sort it out for themselves (and not filming it)?
No, hell no. Not at all the same. In fact, it couldn’t be more different.
If that’s the case, then it is in diametric opposition to hitting the kids them selves – the exact opposite. And telling a kid to hit another kid is not the opposite of hitting a kid. They are different things, but not opposites.
Let’s replace “hitting” with “killing.”
Is having one kid kill another kid completely different from me killing a kid?
They are different, but not that different. The former situation is arguably worse. In addition to the injured [physically/emotionally] kid (dead in my hyperbolic example), you also have an injured [physically/emotionally] adult-by-proxy.
And not encouraging it. Which is what it sounds like in the (sensationalized) video: “Get him back!”
+1 for semantics! -100 for reason…
An adult treating a kid like a punching bag couldn’t be more different than letting two toddlers ineffectually flail at each other and equating the two is a gross misrepresentation of real child abuse.
(Yes, encouraging fighting is obviously bad.)
Childcare licensing and regulation is not great at tracking people. They mostly issue licenses and permits to the owners to operate, and while states vary, generally a center is responsible for assuring that the necessary qualifications exist among the people working at that center. When a person leaves one center and shows up at another, except for fingerprinting if they have an arrest record, they are a brand new person in the eyes of licensing. This is improving somewhat, but slowly. Quality control in early care and education is bare minimum, probably for two reasons: a) politically and culturally early care and education isn’t viewed as a profession needing standards b) people assume it’s better regulated, 'cause why wouldn’t it be…
I don’t agree. While the potential damage may not be as bad, the intent of harming children is the same. When a person pits one dog against another in a dogfight, it’s considered animal cruelty - why would encouraging kids to fight be any different? In having two kids fight there are two victims and one perpetrator, and it should be charged that way.
Perhaps you don’t have kids but those who do usually prefer them to be in a safe environment and protected from violence. Just because kids will argue and fight doesn’t mean the “teachers” shouldn’t try to stop it or even worse, egg them on.
The situation here is not letting two toddlers ineffectually flail at each other.
In the video, you hear at least one adult egging on at least one of the toddlers.
The very specific situation we are discussing is encouraging fighting. As such, at least one of the children is acting as a proxy for the adult.
If you tell your kid to bust mine in the chops [NOTE: not the words in the video, and hyperbolicized for emphasis], I’m going to be pissed at your kid, but I’m not going to bust HIM in the chops. Lord help you, if you’re lucky you’ll be in the hospital, and not have to deal with my wife, who will justly consider you the acting party.
Because they are not animals?
I have a 7 month old and he sometimes will try and suck/bite on my finger. He is at a point where he is starting to understand that he can’t simply bite down full force like he could do before his teeth came in - simply because of my reaction of jerking the finger out and winching. So now he subtly naws at it and watches me, he is learning. I think this is where Ian is going. Two toddlers fighting like this shows them nothing is gained by it, if anything it was a teaching moment squandered by the adults. Who instead where acting unprofessional and with poor judgement.
