Parents Sue Daycare For Inappropriate Touching Between Students

Hannah Tennant-Moore

I remember one day in daycare when I was about four
and a boy in my class kept poking me in the butt during naptime. It made me feel uncomfortable so I told my mother about it when she picked me up. She told me that I should tell the boy to stop touching me if anything similar happened again, and if he didn’t listen, I should tell my teacher right away. Problem solved.

A couple of Florida parents have a different idea about how to resolve inappropriate touching between preschoolers: a lawsuit to the tune of $US5 million.

They allege that their four-year-old daughter experienced emotional trauma at the Starchild Academy daycare center, after she was “molested and otherwise touched in a sexually inappropriate manner” by another little boy. They are suing the daycare for negligence.

This story is clearly reported with a bias to the daycare, so it’s hard to know whether there is any merit to the offended parents’ case. Assuming that it’s true that their daughter was deeply disturbed by inappropriate contact from another student, this little girl needs to be cared for, not used as a pawn in a lawsuit.

The daycare administrators got it right when they said that the goal in a case like this should be to look out for the welfare of both students. According to a teacher at Starchild, “Our agency would not consider a child, at that young of age, a perpetrator. Therefore, our role is to insure that the child is not a victim of child abuse themselves.”

Photo: Kincaid Construction