News Jimmy Kimmel Live - 6 Years Of Eliciting Child Abuse? You Decide.

[void]

I have no personal interest in the litany of late shows and talk shows more generally. At times, however, I do happen upon them like I did with this video.

I would like your opinion on whether what these parents did is emotional/psychological abuse.

and whether you find this to be acceptable behavior on the part of the Jimmy Kimmel Live program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOwEwJD_p2w

Thank you.

 

[Friday]

I don't think it's child abuse. I do think it's cruel.

 

[Naoru]

I do not think it's abuse. However, if some of these parents repeatedly and consistently pulled pranks like this on their children and/or punished their children for crying because of the pranks, sure.

But this is coming from someone whose favorite holiday is April Fools'.

 

[macbeth]

I agree with @Friday. Its mean yes but not abuse.

 

[Gs172003]

They only showed when they told them. Not when they gave them their candy back. Not abuse. A little mean but definitely not abuse.

 

[joeylittle]

If it/other manipulations like this happened frequently? Abusive. Once in a lifetime? Really mean, and could be a very bad memory for someone for a long time. A few times? Bad, bad parenting - and cruel.

I know this will sound disturbing to say - but I found it incredibly educational to watch how the extreme emotion happened in the kids. It was so visceral, so all-encompassing for so many of them. I think it's considered comedy because of the nature of the set-up: we don't think of halloween candy as anything but a trivial thing - and so the reactions of extreme pain are surprising/absurd. It's the old saying about 'tragedy is when I slip and fall on a banana peel; comedy is when someone else slips and falls on a banana peel.'

If they were telling the kids that their pet was dead, we as adults would see it as pure cruelty, with nothing to laugh at. Oddly, for the kids, there might not be a difference - depending on the age. Gone is gone; and something important and special and good being gone is awful - whether it's your goldfish, your candy, or permission to go outside and play.

I don't think the kids who fell, or raged, or exploded into tears were being histrionic; those looked like real reactions, not manipulative temper tantrums. They were really vulnerable. And the same was true of the ones who were OK, who forgave their parents - it was amazing to see how beautiful and fragile and amazing they were.

So, in a very odd way - thank you, @void for posting it. I feel like I understand kids a little better.

 

[Abstract]

I agree with much that others have said here.

Many times and repeated manipulations like this - abuse without a doubt and very damaging.
Once - really horrible and may leave the child with a bad memory.
A few times with similar behaviour - cruel and the parents need urgent parenting classes. And probably are more than a little deficient in the empathy department. How could they?!

I too found it enlightening in a similar ish way to joeylittle. And I agree that the children were authentic in their reaction and the candy was not something trivial for them in their world. I suspect part of the justification is that candy is bad for children so it can't be a bad thing for them to deal with its absence. I suspect it would be linked to many other things though - interactions with people when they got it, the work they had to do to get it, trust of parents, parents behaving as they tell the children to behave, sense and order in their world, and loss of the candy!

The thing that really hit me about the children's reactions though were the ones who didn't scream or cry. Coming from my background and perspective I felt concerned about them. Thats the way I would have reacted and I wonder if there is parentification there, care taking behaviour and if these children possibly didn't have the space to express their disappointments and feelings. Maybe even didn't have ownership over them. My response to the screamers was - isn't that nice that these children could express and realise that their boundaries had been crossed and that they were sad, angry upset. The freedom and internal connection to normal expressions of experience and feelings. I am without a doubt projecting of course but hey ho.

 

[Gs172003]

My kids would have done the same thing at that age. Then they would have laughed when they realized it was a joke. Not everything is traumatic. Dead animal doesn't equal candy that can easily be replaced. It's just candy. Not a friend. Not a necessity. It really depends on how it was handled AFTER.
My sister used to tell her kids that the boogey man lived in the basement at Halloween time. They figured out she was full of it. They are very well adjusted kids.

We used to play pranks on each other all the time. It was so much fun. It made things interesting. ( one birthday we gave my cousin a donut filled with hot sauce. He was a teen mind you)

Some things are just in good fun. It's about intent. Doing this crap on a routine basis? That is abuse. Especially when it gets more and more "cruel". That's my take on it.

 

[Silver.]

My daughter wouldn't have given a squat, because we don't really eat candy in this house. She used to trick or treat because her father wanted to, not because I wanted to (I am against the whole process)
So having said that, to me, the kids came off as insanely spoiled, their reactions didn't make sense at first because of how I raised mini. But then, looking at it again, these are typical reactions of children. Not spoiled so much as entitled. I loved the girl that said "I am not mad, I am not happy, but I am not mad" bless her, she's stinkin cute

I have a huge problem seeing the newer generations as "generation butt-hurt". I think of how we were raised, the freedom we had, and how it's a complete 180 and everyone is pampered through life.
It wasn't abuse by any means. But as everyone else has said, should it be a pattern of behaviour, to sit there and taunt your children for the sake of a reaction, it would seriously mess them up :/

 

[Gs172003]

My daughter wouldn't have given a squat, because we don't really eat candy in this house. She used to t...

That's my thought.

My grandpa used to give us these HUGE Christmas presents. Or so we thought. He'd wrap a box. Into a box. Into a box. It would be something tiny lol.

My brother loves wrapping presents with duct tape.

That's how we roll

 

[Suzetig]

I too found it interesting to see how the kids reacted, and worried a bit about the kids who had very little reaction andvthe girl who's response was to hit her dad.

Little kids do feel things deeply, and haven't learned yet to put a socially acceptable face on things so I worry when I see little ones not reacting, and can't help but wonder if the kids who lashed out is used to having people lash out to her.

I think I'm the context of a loving, secure parent-child relationship, joking like that is ok but it does depend on how long it's left to go on for. There's a pretty fine line between "cruel joke" and abusive behaviour. I do think that playing a prank to get a reaction, to record it and submit it to a national tv show is somewhat exploitative though. I wonder what part it plays in attuned, empathic parenting - as someone routinely humiliated by my parents, I know it presses buttons for me.

 

[Gs172003]

I too found it interesting to see how the kids reacted, and worried a bit about the kids who had very l...

Right there's a difference between routine and every once in a while. Routine means " I can't trust you ". Every once in a while means " there they go again. Those goofs"