St. Louis Mom Encourages Toddlers to Fight in Video Posted on Facebook: Should Child Welfare Officials Get Involved?

Based solely on the video content alone, there isn't enough information there to formulate any opinion on the scenario. Yes, it's shocking. Yes, it's ghastly. Yes, I first jumped to conclusions and got angry. And then my common sense program kicked in.

People "like me" voted 83% that YES, child welfare officials should get involved. Why did I vote against my "peers?" Because the video doesn't satisfy key criteria. 1. Neither child was directly involved in a physical conflict with an adult. 2. The adult's commentary while disgusting to ME was not compelling enough to indicate that she was actually encouraging violence.

I would never speak to any child like that. I would never encourage violence, and certainly would never advocate any child to try to resolve interpersonal conflict by means of physical violence. My parenting skills were learned over many years from intelligent women who excelled at "loving guidance, discipline and redirection." That ideal is what *I* find crucial to being a good parent. MY ideal is my own and I don't have the right to impose it on others. Whatever was going on in this family, the video is not sufficient evidence when you start to think about crawling into her rear with a microscope.

Think also of that video clip from Walmart security cameras, where the woman was beating her child who was strapped into her car seat. I can't find the link, but it was on youTube for a long time. If you find it, can you ping me and I can post it... anyhow. This woman on the video was clearly assaulting a child. You could clearly see that a child strapped into a car seat was being hit repeatedly. THAT is what I mean by "compelling." It has to be absolutely clear what is happening and it has to be clearly definable.

There's just not enough evidence or information from this video to make any sort of legal decision from my point of view.