More Great Gym Parenting
The sad part here is that these guys seem to think that what they are doing to this little boy is funny. This is disturbing. In all honesty, I flinched a few times. I actually would like to call DSS. I’m not even sure why I’m putting this up except to show the level of stupidity in our field.
Michael Boyle's Strengthcoach.com Blog 
October 1, 2013 at 12:02 pm
I am a fitness professional and the parent of a 4 year old boy, and this video disgusted me on both levels. I am also angered by the continued presence of people like this, who give a profession that I’m passionate about, a bad name.!
Shame on them, and you SHOULD call DSS!
November 26, 2012 at 12:04 pm
They erased all the comments and disabled further commenting. Cowardly and not a big shock. Kids will jump and play and movement at all ages is excellent- but to encourage a seemingly unsure child into jumping from heights that could potentially hurt the kid (perhaps not likely for a kid with flexible structure, but with an obvious needless element of danger) is irresponsible and wrong. I live in the area and I’ve heard about these guys as well- notorious as douche bag chiropractors with self esteem issues- who know own a crossfit. Great combo.
November 5, 2012 at 4:33 am
Human stupidity has no limits
October 23, 2012 at 10:52 am
To those saying “what if this happened on the playground?”. It doesn’t. When I was that young I couldn’t climb that high, most playground activities are self-limiting and allow natural exploration of your own body as capabilities develop. And there’s a reason that parents watch over their kids in the first 2-3 years on the playground as their bodies develop.
Yes I played on the playground all the time doing many things that would now be considered “dangerous” – such as climbing to the top of a rope “jungle gym” and jumping off, but I wasn’t placed on top of the structure and told to jump.
October 23, 2012 at 9:00 am
This is disturbing being a father of an 1year old!!!! I hope he gets word of this being talked of and realizes he is an idiot!!!!
October 21, 2012 at 10:46 am
I understand where you are coming from with the “that’s how it used to be…and parents didn’t always watch over our shoulders…”–but then I have to disagree with you, Kyle. Are you saying that makes it ok to post a video of it and put it on display for the world to see, while the parent and others clap and cheer at the fact that the child’s legs didn’t break? What does this video have to do with childhood obesity, asthmatic weakness or allergies? “Somebody think of the children!”…ummm…YES. Or more importantly, somebody think of the adults who need to take a long hard look at how they display their “cool factor”: what is more important, the child or the popularity contest on how many YouTube video hits you can get? This child is just about 2 years old. Hopefully you weren’t given a chemistry set at 2 years old– Or God forbid, a pocket knife?! I’m glad you let your son play and all, but this video is a disgrace.
October 21, 2012 at 12:43 am
The kid ends up jumping from a greater height than I’d be comfortable with my own son (16 months) doing in the next year or two. Mostly I’d be concerned that if he did that on the softish mats in the gym, he might try it on the concrete outside where a slip would be more serious.
Currently I hold his hand as he goes out of the house down the step onto the concrete. But I won’t be doing that forever, and he has a couple of times moved quicker than I expected and fallen and bumped his head – he got a bruise which healed in a couple of days.
I can assure you that children, if not supervised constantly and within arm’s reach by overanxious parents, do this sort of thing all the time. In the old days they called it “play”.
I realise play is less fashionable these days because OH NOES EVERYTHING IS DANGEROUS WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?! but that’s how it used to be. We climbed on the monkey bars and trees, we jumped in the water head-first, we carried pocket-knives, we played with cricket bats, we had electric train sets and chemistry sets. We did a lot of this without a parent watching over our shoulders.
Somehow most of us survived to adulthood, and less of us were obese, asthmatic weaklings with multiple allergies.
I’ll be letting my son play as he continues growing. If anyone wishes to call Child Services here in Victoria Australia, just contact me and I’ll send you my address.