I love that the sister clocked it immediately but was unsure because the brother had no reaction until he suddenly saw it and bolted immediately. Those two would survive a horror movie together lmao
I respect all these kids for getting through their complicated little lives with parents who are actively trying to traumatise them for their own amusement.
The one older kid involved I think could be fine depending on the individual/his relationship with his family but EVERY other one involved SUPER young children and I just cannot imagine purposefully doing this to them
The Fall of Western Civilization ... sacrificing the well-being of children so you get some more eyeballs watching you torture the people you supposedly love most
Yeah. I need to mute these comment notifications. These redditards saying "your soft" is annoying. Startling your kid as a joke and you both laugh afterwards is one thing.
Holding a door closed while they are screaming and crying is abuse. Its not a matter of being soft or tough. It is abuse.
My mom did a variation of this to me growing up (purposely locking me in a room with a doll i hated and held the door) and I dont really look at any of those memories fondly. Why was i being betrayed by my own protector. This paired with alot of other wacky experiences is why i dont want much to do with her as an adult. Its not okay. .
I have a child a little younger. I can't imagine doing this. Besides, she'd be scared for days (or longer) which would make life harder for the household. What's the point?
Look, if you’re going to terrify your kid for entertainment, do it the old fashioned way and tell them that the economy is rigged against them and they’ll never know peace from the ceaseless nonsense and perpetual grind.
Maybe it's okay for high schoolers and middle schoolers, but most of these kids were too young. There's a difference between being momentarily scared and being traumatized and afraid every time you go in that room. I'm an older brother, and I regularly scared my younger siblings. But I didn't go too far or scare them at all when they were too little.
I think it also speaks to knowing your child. Like I had my son watch a video that had something pop up on screen and scare him. It was hilarious.
Another time he found a video and did the same to me. Was a good one, I definitely didnt see it coming.
Theres scaring your kids with a startle and both of you laughing about it. Amd then there's locking them in the bathroom with a continuous source of the scare and them not being able to turn it off.
And then a demented side of you that would want to film and post it online.
Reminds me when I was a kid, we were at my parents friends house. He had a huge tarantula as a pet and I wasn’t a fan of it. I guess they all thought it was funny to put me in the bedroom, shut the lights off, hold the door shut while telling me there is a big snake in there with me.. yeah that was definitely fucked up
Results may vary, most children will actually be ok. Still there is 0 reason to doing this outside of internet clout, and thats rather tasteless imo.
The bigger issue here is that children are not capable of distinguishing between genuine threats and pranks, this can really really undermine your child’s trust in you.
There’s a wide gulf between trauma and harmless. Even though this might not cause “trauma”, I would still call these bad parents. No reason to do this except to laugh at your children and get internet likes.
Tell that to my uncles who took me and my little brother camping and told us about the time they shot a werewolf in those woods. Then woke us up in the middle of the night shouting and shooting off guns and telling us a werewolf got one of my uncles and to stay in the tent and they were going after him. We heard them shooting off the guns in the canyon, and then one of them came by and started scratching the back tent. We started screaming, they shot off some more guns and opened the tent to tell us they scared him off, but not before they left a bunch of animal fur all around the tent for us to see in the morning. I was like 9 and there was no internet.
I think this kind of prank is okay from like, siblings… to kids 10 and over who are easily talked down from the ledge after being startled.
But 1) kids look to parents for stability and safety; and 2) little kids don’t really understand what is and isn’t possible in terms of reality. Hence Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, monsters under the bed, etc.
So I think the biggest risk of trauma is loss of trust for the parents. Hiding behind a door and saying “boo!” is one thing, but putting the idea in a kid’s head that ghosts can happen leaves too much room for error.
Also, good luck getting them to go in the bathroom/bedroom/kitchen ever again by themselves. They’ll be showering and sleeping with you until college.
The most vile part is that they're being conned into saying nice things about their mother under the guise of a cute video, only for them to be traumatized for their love.
Could be harmless or they could be afraid of being alone in the bathroom and mirrors forever. Depends on the kid. Some things can be completely fine to one person and it gives another person a lifelong fear they forget the origin of. This is probably fine for most kids though.
I'm definitely not with the "this is abuse" crowd, but you're totally right. My big brother used to show me screamer videos/flash games all the time, I never learned lmao. No I wasn't fucked up for life, or even a day, still love him
That car commercial screamer became little brother repellent when he was bugging me too much at the computer. As soon as the first few notes played he 180'd.
The parents that do this will get paid back a bit for weeks afterward when they get woken up by their scared kids or have to go into the bathroom with them every time. Let alone if their kid doesn't prank them back by playing dead or the like. What goes around comes around.
The new day version of that car driving uphill through those nice green hills? Not sure if it was made to shock kids and film it for moms or dads socials
I feel bad for the little girl who froze. I remember reading somewhere that that response can somehow make you feel worse later that fight or flight? Like it can somehow be more harmful idk I can't remember clearly but I did feel bad seeing that one.
Saw a friend in the mall once when I was just out of high school. A bunch of friends and I ran up on her and I grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up, and it was the weirdest sensation, like she was fake. Just went completely stiff. We could have carried her out of the mall like a mannequin. Instead we set her down and apologized, but had never ever encountered a reaction like that.
Once at habitat for humanity we had a compressed air line blow and the rapid decompression was very loud and startling. From my vantage i saw 3 people shoot for the stairs to leave, I and 1 other just stood there frozen, and the 1 guy right next to it punched it. Was so cool to see all three on display, and to learn which one I was.
Yeah, my parents and great grandparents did this stuff. My great grandparents did because "you got to learn to be tough." Parents just to be funny.
My great grandmother's old ass would go outside in the dark and scratch on our windows because we weren't in bed like she said. You open the curtains to see a half dead old lady staring at you. Fright of your little life.
No cameras or incentives. Doing it because they're sick of your shit.
When I watched Texas chainsaw Massacre at an entirely too young an age my mom stood outside my window and scratched at my window. When I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall I was greeted by my dad in the pitch dark with a hockey mask on. before social media without any cameras present.
Even if you don't care about how terrifying this would be for your child and take purely selfish perspective, it'd be a massive pain in the ass to deal with calming your kid down after doing this to them. It'd totally ruin your night... and then there's all the bedwetting and therapy bills later on.
Let's be realistic here.
I can 100% guarantee the calming down expected from parents who do this to their children in the first place is not gentle. I would imagine it'll be a combination of "why are you crying", "stop crying", and "its just a prank".
Because they seek validation from strangers and fail to connect the dots between children who don’t feel safe and secure and people who end up in jail.
When I was a small child... My dad called me over to him. He was standing in the hallway outside his bedroom door. He pointed into the bedroom at a box sitting on his bed and said "son, do me a favor? Go grab that box for me "
Even being so young I was immediately suspicious ... Why are you asking me to grab a box for you 5 feet away in a dark bedroom? I reached for the light switch and he said "No, no, you don't need that." Which sent up another RED FLAG.
But oh well... I'm little, I trust my dad, so I walk up to the box and grab it. I hear a little mumble sound "mmhmmmhmm" come from the closet and I look over...
I see a 3 foot alien gray looking at me from in the closet. I froze in fear.... And it reached its arms out and rushed towards me making a scary sound!
I fucking screamed and near pissed myself. The alien took off its face and it was my mom hiding in the closet. She was on her knees and wearing a dark robe with alien gloves too. She tried to give me a hug and say sorry but the damage was done!! Traumatized the hell out of me.
Both my parents set me up to scare me when I knew something was up but I trusted them anyways. I would never do that to my kid.
Yeah, I’m with you. Even if it doesn’t do any lasting harm it’s not worth the risk just to get a laugh. Then if they have trouble sleeping you totally own the guilt and the consequences. I’ll do like a normal jumpscare from the door and my kids love that. But something this elaborate is just mean spirited.
When I was a little kid I was super paranoid about strangers hiding in my house for whatever reason. So every night id go to my room and throw myself at my bed, smashing and kicking just in case someone was under the covers. That is how my dad learned not to hide in my bed to scare me.
Some people shouldn't reproduce. You are supposed to be your kid's guardian. The one person in this shitty world they can trust. And not abuse that trust to have a laugh and share it with the world. Psychopaths creating the next generation of psychopaths.
This is why kids don't want to do anything to do with the parents once they grow up & move out. Shit parents. They belong in old age homes, unloved and uncared for.
when i was a kid i saw something similar in my basement (looked like a neon green flashing gremlin) and i attribute it to standing up and turning around too quickly and losing some blood pressure. But the sight remains with me and im in my 40s. hopefully these kids dont get that traumatised,
Playing pranks and scaring kids is a very normal thing across cultures and even species.
We evolved and developed socially to do these things to provide inexperienced young with an artificial controlled scary scenario but where they are in no real danger, and to foster social bonds as often what feels scary at the time becomes remembered as funny - especially when the child grows and realises there was nothing to be scared of.
All that for some social media attention. I feel bad for the kids.
Edit: I hope the money made from those tik tok videos will be enough to pay for the counseling needed and was worth the damage done to the relationships between parent and child.
You can't convince me this isn't child abuse. They're creating a situation that will cause their child distress, they delight in it, and then monetize it. And not only are they sharing their child's distress/humiliation publically (without consent), but giving AI tools their child's image to let others do what they please with it.
These parents do not feel enough shame because this type of shit keeps happening. Your child shouldn't be my entertainment.
I'm having a tough time with this happening on Reddit and the internet more broadly… People keep posting stuff that is sometimes funny or entertaining, but the fact that they recorded and posted it at the expense of others, actually sucks ass. So we're left seeing a lot of stuff that, whatever its content, how it's made seeps into the entire thing and means it all sucks ass.
What the fuck is this comment section?
Your parents never played a harmless scary prank on you? My dad once hid in my closet and scared the shit out of me, once I was able to put my heart back in my chest we laughed about it for days. These kids are fine.
Yup, when I was a kid your parents pranked you for the love of the game, not even a video. People are so soft. Better not take your kid to a haunted house for Halloween because they might call CPS.
My dad showed me that one coffee commercial with the jumpscare as a kid, thought my heart was gonna fall out of my ass. Tbh I've been chasing that high ever since, thanks dad for igniting my love for horror!
My dad did the same when I was a kid. I'm fine (I really am!) and we laughed about that for years as well. Also developed a love of horror movies haha. Maybe it's because I'm Gen X, I don't know. There was never any maliciousness about it just a dad being a dad. he had great dad jokes as well but also gave us unconditional love and spent lots of time with us and gave great advice. My mom, on the other hand, did do some damage.
Nah my dad did shit like this all the time when I was a kid and after I calmed down it was always funny. He’d hide Halloween decorations behind closet doors and set up hidden speakers and shit lmao
I hate all of these moms. Now how many of these jackasses are going to be changing wet sheets in the morning because their kids are too scared to use the bathroom at night?
God people in these comments are such pussies lmfao. My dad used to hide behind a tree in a Michael Myers mask and scare my friends and I. I’m pretty sure I don’t have permanent trauma from a scare that lasts 0.5 seconds lol
My grandpa would take me camping when I was little and he would make up excuses to have me walk back to the house (maybe 1/2 a mile through the dark woods). We never had a flashlight -- that was one of the things he would 'forget" and have me go back for. Then he'd stalk me through the woods making bear noises. I didn't know it was him until years later.
I can't imagine not having that as part of my childhood. It was an adventure.
lol some of yall had absolutely zero fun as kids and it shows. “Traumatized” lmao. Going through a fucking haunted maze or watching a scary movie is more traumatizing than this.
That would honestly fuck my shit up as a child. I was so terrified of Bloody Mary when I was a kid. Fuck, I still won't say her name three times by a mirror and I'm in my thirties now
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u/incapablepotato 2d ago
I respect the kid who said fuck this I’m throwing hands.