2023-12-27 01:44:32
On social networks, especially on TikTok, it is common to see parents playing pranks on their children: eggs explode on their foreheads and they wait for a reaction. Almost always, the boys and girls (the victims) get angry, cry or stay still. Others, smaller, months old, who are just beginning to crawl, are placed in front of moving elements to scare them. What few imagine is that these viral jokes, which make users laugh more than a few and add millions of views, have serious consequences on the mental health of minors.
“This type of act is an absolute lack of respect on the part of parents,” said Ana Cristina Jiménez, a clinical psychologist with more than 30 years of experience. “What they do is make their children an object of ridicule, exposing them to other people’s laughter in situations that are intimate,” she added.
If these moments occur by chance in the privacy of the family, they can become funny, said Jiménez, but at the same time an imbalance occurs: the minor is put below, because it is only one of the two parties that is laughs. In this case, who made the joke. When they are provoked, controlled by parents, with the intention of causing laughter, it is a form of “abuse and failure to set limits,” said the expert. “It is a very explicit form of mockery, it is funny for the one who does it, not for the one who receives it.”
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By doing the exercise of writing the words cracked egg in the TikTok search engine, the social network shows this harsh reality. There are dozens of publications in which boys and girls, ages between four and seven, are seen humiliated in front of the camera.
According to the psychologist, one of the first effects that minors may feel is distrust of their parents or the adult who has this type of behavior. Added to this is that it affects their security and generates fear, fear and uncertainty, because adults for minors are people who generally become figures of stability and coherence. “If the adult has a behavior where only one of the two is laughing, what this shows is incipient bullying that disconcerts the children and generates discomfort. “They don’t understand that inconsistency of something being done to them that makes them uncomfortable, but that makes adults laugh.”
Psychologist Joanne Broder, an expert in healthy relationships with technology and presence on social networks, told the Spanish newspaper El País that parents make these jokes with a very clear objective: to attract attention and obtain likes, comments and validation. And she added: “Not only are they physically and emotionally abusing their children through shame, ridicule and humiliation, but to do so publicly is to brag about it to the entire world.”
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“What are we laughing at? “Of the naivety of minors that turns into ridicule?” Jiménez asked himself, who also explained that if these cases are subject to a progressive review, in the future “we may encounter insecure adolescents and parents who do not care.” “They see nothing wrong with that unequal relationship in which their children are left in a helpless position.”
Juan Gabriel Vásquez, clinical psychologist, said that the younger a child is, the more dependent they are on their main caregiver, who must have three conditions: predictable, available and empathetic.
“These pranks are asymmetrical because minors trust their caregiver, it is a betrayal of trust at some point and with a person who is very vulnerable,” said Vásquez. He also explained that in these cases the possibility of feeling safe in the presence of these caregivers is decreased.
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One of the videos that has gone viral the most is that of the famous cactus that scares babies. They go from calm to astonishment and then to crying. In response to this case, Vásquez said: “By evolution, children risk taking risks in their crawling and explorations thanks to the trust that their caregiver gives them, but if they encounter these types of acts, the ability to trust others is lost. others and in himself. It is not a trust given by the word, it is one of being there, they stop trusting that the other will be there to come when they are bad.”
Later, resentment could also be generated on the part of the children towards their parents, because they will understand these situations in which they took advantage of their innocence to turn it into a video. Which were a source of ridicule.
If the caregiver systematically reduces the trust of the human being in his or her care, other types of problems may arise, such as the fact that they grow up with the logic of not reporting acts of bullying at school or at work, because they feel that the other person does not care for them. to protect.
“It is necessary for parents to reflect and realize that this is not humor, this is bullying, they are making them defenseless and making it a reason for ridicule, there is no laughter, what there is is abuse due to inequality,” concluded the psychologist Jiménez.
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