Childcare Workers Recreate Fight Club With Four-Year-Olds

Childcare should be a place we can all leave our kids knowing that they’ll be safe and well looked after. But if this story is anything to go by, some childcare centres are hiding secrets that would terrify most parents.

Two childcare workers in New Jersey were recently charged with fourth degree child abuse charges and putting children in danger after Snapchat videos surfaced of them goading children into fights eerily similar to violent top-grossing film Fight Club. Erica Kenny, aged 22, and Chanese White, aged 28, were charged for setting the fights up at the childcare centre in Cranford, and encouraging the kids to fight in the backgrounds of the videos. Both workers have been fired, and the childcare centre Lightbridge Academy is working to pick up the pieces.

The kids under at the childcare centre were toddlers and young children, aged between four and six. Both girls and boys were seen in the videos. Parents were understandably horrified after the news came out, and have been demanding answers from the centre as to the full extent of the violence that resulted from the women’s encouragement.

Although the women posted the videos on Snapchat, a platform on which videos are deleted within a day of being posted, someone saw the ‘fight club’ footage and recorded it. By providing this as evidence to law enforcement, the fights were discovered and immediate action was taken to ensure the women couldn’t cause further harm.

Parents, teachers, and prosecutors aghast

When prosecutors first looked into the case, they were dumbfounded by the footage. There were at least a dozen children involved, and in the videos they are seen throwing each other to the ground and swinging punches. The women captioned the videos Fight Club.

The Vice President of the childcare centre, Jaclyn Falzarano had this to say: “We are completely appalled… As a mom, I know those feelings.”

Acquaintances of the perpetrators were quick to indicate their lack of surprise over the behaviour of the women, particularly Erica Kenny. An old school friend, Jessica Staines, said although she was “not even surprised” she was appalled that Kenny, who is a mother herself, would do something like this to other people’s children.

The parents of the children who attend the centre, and particularly those that were involved, have the most right to be angry and concerned about the situation. One mother who has a child at the daycare said: “It’s really freaking me out at the moment…My son [he] came home with a broken finger once, and now I’m worried about what happened while he was there.”

Kenny and White both face charges that almost guarantee prison time. White could serve as much as 18 months for the fourth degree child abuse charges, while Kenny faces an additional charge of putting children in danger. The two women will be sentenced later this week.

In the meantime, parents and their children are trying to move on and forget that these two women ever pushed the charges to violence.

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