Kid-Shaming on TikTok: When Parents Are the Online Bullies

Parents often worry about their kids being bullied online, but lately some parents have become the bullies.

Numerous parents are taping themselves disciplining their children, then posting the videos on TikTok to teach them a lesson. One mom filmed her kids scrubbing floors as a punishment for fighting. “So my kids want to be d–s, this is what I make them do,” she said in the video. A father filmed three kids squatting with their backs against the wall and their arms stretched out, saying it was punishment for acting up. Two of the children in the video were sobbing and one hit the camera when it got close to her face.

In a TikTok video that went viral, a father swears at his daughter and smashes her laptop because she had it in bed with her when she was supposed to be sleeping. The girl appears to be suppressing laughter, and the father, responding to criticism in the comments section, stated that it was fake. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

In another viral video, a 27-year-old father in Williamson, W.Va., Derek Hensley, uses a guitar to smash his partner’s daughter’s TV screen, supposedly because she was playing videogames instead of cleaning her room. He too later said it was staged.

Real or not, such videos can have serious consequences.