Warning: Distressing content.
Videos have circulated on social media of a very horrific scene at a childcare centre in Hamilton, Mississippi. In the videos, you can see several toddlers being terrorised by a Lil’ Blessings Daycare staff worker wearing a scary Halloween mask.
The childcare worker is filmed walking up to the children and screaming directly in their faces. The clearly distressed toddlers are seen screaming in fear, hiding behind furniture, and sobbing throughout the horrific ordeal.
There is a link to the videos right here, but we have chosen not to share this on our page as it’s really hard to watch and quite distressing to witness these children obviously terrified. There are three videos in total.
“Are you being bad?”
In one of the videos, one worker goes up to the “naughty” toddlers and screams in their faces, promoting them to burst into tears, obviously incredibly afraid.
Another worker can be heard saying to only target the kids who have been “bad”.
In one incident she leans over one terrified child and asks “are you being bad?”, to which the child wails out “No” and shakes his head. She then leans over and screams directly into his face as he is left sobbing on the table.
Children left traumatised
In another video, a toddler is so afraid she is unable to make crying sounds and instead is left red-faced and trying to catch her breath.
There is also footage of three scared children hiding behind a shelving unit as the woman pretends to knock down the door. She then chases the children around the room as they wail with terror. The childcare workers almost appear to be enjoying it.
Childcare workers terrorising children filmed by colleague
According to The Sun, the video footage was taken by a concerned colleague at Lil’ Blessings Daycare and shared on Facebook.
Jennifer Kayla Newman told The Sun she recorded the shocking scenes to highlight the actions of her co-worker to parents.
She wrote,
A couple of weeks ago some girls at the daycare bought Halloween masks to scare the kids. They did it and I never got it on video.
When I heard she was going to do it again, I recorded to get the proof and then the video was sent to parents to show them how their child was being treated.
I did not video this for sh**s and giggles. It was not funny to me. I did not get amusement out of this.”
Jennifer said she had tried to flag her co-worker’s behaviour for some time but, until now, said she was unable to provide proof.
According to another source, this has been going on for over a month.
Childcare workers fired
Police are now investigating the childcare’s very controversial behavioural management tactics and, according to the Monroe Journal, four employees had been fired over the videos that went viral earlier this week.
On Thursday, the local police issued a statement on Facebook:
The Monroe County, MS Sheriff‘s Department is aware of video from the daycare in Hamilton and is working with the county prosecutor to see if there is any possible criminal charges that can be filed.”
Our thoughts are with all the children who were impacted by this horrific form of punishment and the families who had to witness their children being treated this way. Absolutely appalling. We hope justice is served.
