One mother is suing the Adventure Learning Center Gravois in Missouri after her terrified child was made to bash his equally traumatised peers in “fight club” style brawls organised by their daycare teachers who watch the match gleefully and cheer. Both teachers involved have been caught by the authorities.
The incident came to light when a 10-year-old at the facility recorded the troubling scene. In the footage, a teacher can be seen giving two children green “Hulk hands” by a teacher before they are instructed to pound one another.
As a teacher is seen jumping up and kicking her foot in the air in glee as the fight unfolds in front of her, another child intervenes and tries to break up the fight:
Although the incident occurred in 2016, the footage of the scene just came out.
Nicole Merseal, the mother of one of the toddlers who were forced to pummel one another, is now suing. Merseal told the press that her three children were at the daycare center that day and that her ten-year-old son recorded the fight involving his four-year-old brother.
Merseal added that the horrific incident unfolded on her youngest son’s fourth birthday: “He [her child in the video] doesn’t understand why his friends were fighting him — why he was beaten up by his best friends. And it was on his fourth birthday.
“In the video, he’s wiping his face over and over again. The day care worker – you see her walk over to him and tell him ‘you’re fine’ and pat him on the back and then walk and start another fight with other kids.”
Seeking at least USD $25,000, Merseal – who has since moved her children to another daycare centre – revealed that she feels not enough has been done since the incident. She added: “I want them to be held accountable, and I don’t want this to happen to any other child.”
The mother of three asked: “If I am not the voice for my children, who will be?”
The teachers have been fired but the daycare centre is still operating. The state also did not press criminal charges when the incident occurred in 2016.
Now that Merseal is suing and now that the footage of the shocking incident just surfaced, the two teachers have been arrested and charged by the authorities in St. Louis, Missouri.