By now most of us have seen the video.
Taylor Frankie Paul. A fight. Metal barstools. And a little girl sitting on a couch watching it all unfold.
The internet has spent the last week debating whether Taylor should be canceled. Whether she should have been cast on The Bachelorette. Whether Dakota provoked her. Whether she is a victim or a perpetrator.
I am not here for any of those conversations.
I am here for the little girl on the couch.
Because in all of the noise, in all of the takes and the tweets and the think pieces, nobody is talking about what that child absorbed that night. Nobody is asking what she is carrying right now. And nobody is addressing what she needs.
That is the conversation I have been having for 25 years as The Parent Child Whisperer®. And it is the most important one we are not having.
First, Let Me Be Clear About Taylor
I do not know what Taylor Frankie Paul has done for her daughter over the last three years. None of us do. That video is three years old. People grow. Parents do the work. And the fact that this video is only surfacing now does not tell us anything about the healing that may or may not have happened behind closed doors since then.
What I do know is this.
Growth does not automatically undo what a child absorbed in that moment.
Even the most healed parent has to go back and address what their child stored in their body that night. Because children do not process trauma on our timeline. They process it on theirs.
And right now that little girl is eight years old watching that video circulate on every screen around her.
That reopens something.
What Children Actually Experience When They Witness Conflict
Here is what most parents do not understand.
When a child witnesses a violent or highly charged conflict between the adults in their life, they do not just see it. They absorb it. They store it. And they make meaning out of it in ways that have nothing to do with what actually happened and everything to do with what they believe about themselves and the world.
In my 25 years of working inside families as The Parent Child Whisperer®, moving directly into homes and sitting with parents and children in their most raw and unguarded moments, I have seen the same pattern play out over and over again.
The child who witnessed something they should never have seen grows up carrying three questions they were never given answers to.
And those unanswered questions become the blueprint for everything.
The Three Questions Every Child Carries
Question One: Is this my fault?
Children are egocentric by nature. Not because they are selfish but because developmentally they connect themselves to everything that happens around them. When chaos erupts in their home, their first instinct is to find their own role in it.
If nobody tells them directly and clearly that what happened was not their fault, they will decide that it was. And that decision will live in them for decades.
Question Two: Is this what love looks like?
Whatever a child witnesses between the adults they love becomes their blueprint. For their future relationships. For what they accept from a partner. For what they repeat as a parent. For what they believe they deserve.
A child who watched violence or explosive conflict between caregivers does not just remember the event. They internalize it as a definition. This is what relationships look like. This is what people do when they are angry. This is what love feels like.
Unless someone rewrites that definition for them directly, they will carry it into every relationship they ever have.
Question Three: Am I safe?
Not just physically. Emotionally. A child who witnessed that level of chaos is asking whether the people who are supposed to protect them can actually protect them. Whether the ground beneath them is solid. Whether they can trust the adults in their world to keep them safe.
When that question goes unanswered, children develop one of two responses. They either become hypervigilant, always waiting for the next explosion, always scanning the room for danger. Or they shut down entirely, learning to disappear emotionally as a survival mechanism.
Both of those responses follow them into adulthood.
What Parents Need to Do
If you are reading this and recognizing yourself, if there have been moments in your home that your child should not have witnessed, here is where you start.
Step One: Do not pretend it did not happen.
Children know. They always know. Pretending everything is fine does not protect them. It just teaches them to distrust their own instincts and to bury what they saw and felt.
Step Two: Have the direct conversation.
Not once. Not as a formal speech. As an ongoing conversation that evolves as your child grows. It starts with something as simple and as powerful as this:
“What you saw was not your fault. You are safe. And that is not what love is supposed to look like.”
Those three sentences directly address the three questions your child is carrying. They are not magic. They are a beginning.
Step Three: Answer the questions they are not asking out loud.
Children rarely come to parents and say “I am confused about what I witnessed.” They act it out instead. They become withdrawn. They act out at school. They develop anxiety. They have trouble sleeping. They become clingy or they push everyone away.
Those behaviors are the three questions showing up in disguise.
When you see those behaviors, do not address the behavior. Address the question underneath it.
Step Four: Get them dedicated support.
Not because they are broken. Not because you failed beyond repair. But because they deserve someone in their corner whose entire job is to be there for them. A therapist, a counselor, someone who is just for them and not managing anyone else’s feelings in the room.
Step Five: Do your own work.
This is the one most parents skip. And it is the most important.
Your child does not need a perfect parent. They need a parent who is doing the work. Who is honest about their struggles. Who models what it looks like to take responsibility, to grow, and to choose differently.
Because here is the truth that nobody wants to say out loud.
You cannot give your child what you have not given yourself.
If your wounds are still open, they are still bleeding onto your children. No matter how much you love them. No matter how hard you are trying.
This Is Not Just About Taylor
Taylor Frankie Paul’s daughter is not the only child sitting with something she should never have had to carry.
She is just the one we can all see right now.
In every home, in every family, there are children carrying questions that were never answered. Children who watched something they could not process and were left alone to make sense of it. Children who built their entire understanding of love, safety, and relationships on a foundation that was laid in a single unguarded moment.
That is what I have dedicated my life to addressing as The Parent Child Whisperer®.
Not the moment itself. But what gets built on top of it.
Because the moment passes. The programming stays.
And the only person who can rewrite it is the parent who is willing to look in the mirror and do the work.
If You Are Ready to Do That Work
If this blog resonated with you, if you recognized yourself or your child in these words, I want to hear from you.
For 25 years as The Parent Child Whisperer® I have been moving into families’ homes and helping parents understand what their children are carrying and what to do about it.
This work is not about judgment. It is not about shame. It is about breaking the cycle before it becomes the next generation’s open wound.
Visit me at veenuinspires.com to learn more.
Because your child is not a witness to your story.
They are a student of it.
And you get to decide what they learn.