Daycare works fired after being caught on video terrifying toddlers with Halloween mask

An American nursery is under fire after footage emerged showing workers using frightening Halloween masks to scare children as a form of punishment.

The video shows a number of staff members at Lil' Blessings Child Care & Learning Center in Mississippi terrifying innocent kids in a bid to get them to behave better.

Parents have since labelled the tactic as "hideous".

The video was taken by a concerned colleague. It shows one of the workers scaring kids as they sit quietly at a table.

One worker can be heard telling the masked woman to avoid the toddlers who have "been good", and scare the ones who have been "bad".

A number of children can be seen crying as the masked worker walks around the daycare yelling and screaming at kids.

Photo / Reddit

One incident shows the masked woman leaning over right into the face of a toddler, asking "are you being bad" to which the child cries "no" while shaking his head.

She then screams into the toddler's face "you better be good".

During one incident, three children were seen hiding behind a shelving unit as the woman pretends to knock the door down.

After entering the room, she then proceeds to chase the tots who start running and wailing in terror.

She then orders the children to "clean up," even resorting to screaming, before storming off to another class.

The worker continues the act for several minutes before warning another group of children "to be ready".

Photo / Reddit

Four employees have since been fired.

Speaking out after the troubling videos went viral on social media, one daycare worker — who referred to herself as CeeCee — insisted the act was not "ill-intentioned."

"It wasn't meant to harm anybody and it wasn't ill-intentioned," she said in a video shared on Facebook, according to the Daily Mail.

"The teachers asked me if I would do it or if they could use (the mask) to get their class to listen or clean up. I'm not a child abuser."

"I did not go in there at my own discretion. As in, I didn't go in there with the intention to literally traumatise those children. I expected them to react the way they reacted when I did it," she said.

Insisting that the kids she looked after at the daycare meant everything to her, CeeCee vowed to never visit the premises again.

"Long story short, I bought the masks to scare her [coworker] eventually and they were used inappropriately," she explained.

Photo / Reddit

"But what you all didn't see was after I had left the room, I took it off and I went back into the classroom… and I said 'CeeCee got the monster. It's not coming back.' And they would hug me. I've known those kids their whole life."

"They knew it was me, and they had the reaction they did cause they are children and that's it," she added.

Another worker wiped away tears as she apologised for scaring the children.

The owner of the daycare, who has been in charge for more than 20 years, said she doesn't condone the behaviour and has fired the staff members involved.

"The people that did those acts are no longer with us. They were fired. I wasn't here at the time and wasn't aware they were doing that. I don't condone that and never have. I just want to say it's been taken care of."

This article was first published by the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.