What do you think of pranking?

[Jean in Newcastle]

Ds just got back from summer camp where he was the recipient of some pranks while he slept. They were not harmful but upset him because they were done while he was asleep and then he felt like he had to try and stay awake all night to avoid more. I haven't said a word to him but hearing about it gave me very bad flashbacks to boarding school where pranks were not kind at all. For the longest time I had a bad time on my birthday where the tradition would be to toss the birthday girl into an ice cold bath. I remember one traumatized girl hiding and sleeping in her closet at night so that people couldn't get at her. I figured out how to "lock" my door by strategically opening draws and placing a chair so that the door couldn't be opened and I could sleep without harassment. But anyway, I know that my experience colors my thoughts of relatively innocent things like shortsheeting a bed or putting shaving cream on the face. I'm sort of guessing that most of you don't have the bad experiences I had, so I'm wondering what your reaction is to pranks?

[Soror]

Immature and stupid. It is not something I would do or ever appreciate, but I'm kind of a fuddy dud. However, I appreciate that many people do like such things and think some are fine and but then some cross that line- ie anything that is physically or emotionally harmful. Regardless of what is done and how harmless if it is not liked or wanted by the other party then it should stop imo. I could see my son thinking it was super cool, while dd1 would find such things very upsetting.

[angel marie]

I think nowadays we all look at these pranks differently and it's really not politically correct anymore. I wonder where the adults were?? If in cabins and depending how big they are, older college students etc... should be sleeping there too.

[Kirch]

My knee-jerk, haven't thought much about it is that in general, I think pranks that involve personal humiliation or distress are NOT okay. So things like shaving cream on the hand/tickle the nose, the cold bath you mentioned, drawing things on a sleeping person's face, anything involving a person's underwear or personal care items--those kinds of things would not be okay. Things like short-sheeting a bed, rearranging furniture, forking a yard (no tp, though--too messy), filling a car with balloons, drive-by water balloon attack, etc. don't bother me as much. The question should be whether or not the victim is likely to find it funny as well, or at least not more than mildly exasperating. Is the goal to have fun at someone else's expense and laugh at their humiliation (not okay), or is it to have fun *with* them? Even then, the prankster needs to think about the person being pranked--some people can't handle even jokes/pranks meant in fun.

[IsabelC]

I think that if it's making the kid try to stay awake all night then it's not OK.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Hotdrink

[DawnM]

I am sorry. That is NOT acceptable. Our scout troop makes a huge deal about not allowing this. I appreciate that.

 

And I DO understand about certain things from our growing up years tainting our views on things. I did not experience that at boarding school, but I know those who did experience similar things. :grouphug:

[kolamum]

:grouphug:

 

I don't do pranks, I don't like them. As a PP said, I think the big reason for them isn't a fun laugh for EVERYONE, but to humiliate one person. Having said that I think things that can cause everyone to laugh without upsetting anyone is okay.

 

You know, maybe a coloured tablet in the bathroom sink that makes it go blue when you turn the water on. No harm, but sure makes you think, "huh?" Unfortunately, when it comes to children left to their own devices sometimes it's a matter of, "If I don't prank someone they wont' like me."

 

It's also hard, sometimes, for children to understand the difference between a joke & meanness. I don't do pranks on my kids, but I'm still constantly having to remind them that they've gone too far when someone has hurt feelings. That can be hard too because each person is wired differently. I have a child who doesn't care if someone laughs at him, he'll try it all the same & laugh along kinda like his father. I have another child who'd rather run & hide then be laughed at, kinda like me.

[nono]

In my world, pranking should only be done by a close knit group.

 

I can think of two instances where it was wonderful fun - between two tight families who always vacationed together. The pranks were opportunist in nature, not off-the-shelf pranks (except for short sheeting, but that is a classic!) . The other was a work team of 8 folks who often travelled together. We were very tight.

 

In both cases adults-all level headed ones-were involved. Too many youngsters seem to not know the line among annoying/mean/funny when it comes to pranks.

[Mommyfaithe]

Pranking often = bullying.

[Just Beachy]

It all totally depends on the one being pranked. As long as the recipient is able to laugh along with the group and accept it, then I see no problem with it. Otherwise, it sounds like bullying.

 

:) Beachy

[Lawana]

Pranking often = bullying.

:iagree:

Ds went on a church camp a few weeks ago, and they made it clear that there was a zero tolerance for pranking. First offense and the parents would be called to pick the child up.

[Night Elf]

I have never seen anything funny about trying to embarrass and/or humiliate another human being. April 4th was one of the worst days of the year when I was growing up. My kids have never experienced April 4th because I've told them how stupid it is to pull a joke on someone. And that's how I really feel. (My ex-husband was a prankster. We had some awful fights over it. He never did understand just how much I hated jokes. Would you believe that his wife once complained to me?? Good grief! I told her he was her problem now. :D)

[Melinda in VT]

I think a lot of it depends on the relationship between prankers and prankees.

 

I was involved in pranking two teachers in high school. They are two of the teachers I felt the most fondness for.

[----]

.

[Lizzie in Ma]

I am NOT a fan.

[Kathryn]

I think it's immature and stupid (that's not a word I like to use). I hate seeing the things some of my FB friends do to people on April 1st.

[Lady Florida.]

I don't like pranks. Never have. I hate April Fool's Day.

[Annie G]

It all totally depends on the one being pranked. As long as the recipient is able to laugh along with the group and accept it, then I see no problem with it. Otherwise, it sounds like bullying.

 

:) Beachy

 

The problem with this is that many kids- and adults- will laugh along with everyone else when in reality they are hurt inside. They just go along to be one of the crowd or because they think it'll keep them from being pranked again.

It's really difficult when everyone else thinks something is funny and one person feels hurt.

 

The same scenario plays out in the workforce when someone tells an off color joke or makes sexual comments to someone else. Nobody wants to be the first one to stand up to the person, and going along just makes it worse.

 

Having said that, I think mild pranking is fine if the kids are really close friends and no humiliation is meant.

 

I hate when the adults in charge lead the pranks, though.

[Harriet Vane]

I think pranks that involve personal humiliation or distress are NOT okay.

 

:iagree:

[Murphy101]

It's isn't a joke/prank unless everyone finds it funny, including the victim.

 

If you aren't close enough that the victim would feel comfortable cussing you for it instead of laughing if they felt it wasn't funny - then you aren't close enough to be messing with them or their stuff without their okay.

 

So if a BFF or a brother did it? I'd be less inclined to think it intentionally mean. (It might be, but usually it's just they over estimated the value of their great idea.:tongue_smilie:)

 

Some person they just met at camp?

No. They should be keeping their hands to themselves and their own stuff. They don't know the other person well enough to know what makes them angry or what they find funny or where their lines are.

[Tammyla]

:iagree:

The adults should put a stop to it imo, and many choose to look the other way or even coach them along to bigger and better pranks.

 

 

Pranking often = bullying.

 

I did some lock-in-sleep-overs and pranks kept many of us awake.

[aggieamy]

I DETEST pranks. Hate them. :glare:

 

Uh oh. I just realized some of what I do to DD and my niece are probably considered pranks. When I've got a surprise for them (new book, little toy, game) I'll do something like hide it under their pillow and throw their PJ's on the floor. Then I'll yell at them to get upstairs and clean up their room. They find the surprise when they put their PJ's back under their pillows!

Edited July 24, 2012 by aggieamy

[Juniper]

Well, my son was just complaining yesterday that his cabin didn't get pranked at camp and his twin's did. He feels left out. :lol:

[Dory]

The rule around here is that unless everyone, including the pranked person, can laugh at it, than it's not funny. Hurting someone, even emotionally is not something we encourage. I like the kids to be able to laugh at themselves though. We have done innocent things around here, things like trading the salt and sugar, always makes the person make the wildest face, but then we are always ready to help them get a new bowl of cereal or whatever it is afterwards. At the Bible school, they would take a persons socks (leaving one pair so the person had something to wear) and would tie them in a ball, soak it thoroughly and put it in the freezer. The look on the persons face when they found it was hilarious and they always got a good laugh out of it too. It wasn't as though they were left with no socks to wear.

 

A prank that hurts or scares someone, is just bullying with a new name.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Dory

[swellmomma]

Depends on what the pranks were. innocent ones where no one is hurt, no one person is the target each night and everyone has a laugh including the "victim" to me is part of camp life. My kids that have been away to camp have been on the receiving end and giving end of pranks and see it as an initiation. Sometimes the camp counsellor helps them set up, sometimes the camp counsellor says no, depending on safety issues etc.

 

For example, the boys set up pillows to fall off the door when someone opened it. The counsellor had heard them planning this and told them it could not be water and nothing that could injure the person when it fell. The kids came up with pillows, same prank, no injuries.

 

1 time ds was on the receiving end, of someone lightly pulling a feather across his cheek while he slept. They thought it was hilarious that he kept slapping himself in the face to get rid of the "bug". When ds actually woke up from it he had a chuckle too. The next night he joined in on pranking someone else.

 

I allow them with scouts too. BUT we have guidelines. 1 anyone who does want to be pranked at all, speaks up the very first night, and that person can not help do pranks on others. Nothing can be done that harms the person physically, damages property or is too mean spirited.

 

Pranks imo should be playful and not malicious. I don't allow water poured onto beds (damages property) or people's things being stolen or hidden. BUt things like the pillows or feathers or scratching at the side of the tent like an animal etc is fun for the kids.

[WTMCassandra]

I'm not a fan of pranking. I've only had two pranks played on me, and neither ended well.

 

1. My husband, then my boyfriend, hid my glasses while I was taking a nap. I was blind as a bat without them--coke-bottle lenses. It was traumatic when I couldn't find them--they were my "life." I was LIVID. Fortunately, he wised up and never did that again. Then, I had LASIK surgery ; ).

 

2. My freshmen roommates in college wanted to give me a surprise birthday celebration (my birthday is in February). I was a very busy person, so the only plan they could think of was to tell me that my boyfriend (now husband), who was at another college about an hour away, was ill and in the hospital and I needed to come to the dorm to take a call from his parents explaining the situation. That's how they got me to leave my computer lab job and come back to the dorm (This was long before cell phones; I think they might have told my boss so I wouldn't get in trouble for leaving work). Again, I was LIVID. It didn't help that earlier that school year that my boyfriend had been in the hospital twice at his college: 1) brown spider bite from his bed in his freshmen dorm that turned into MRSA and 2) emergency appendectomy--it almost burst and killed him. So, that prank? NOT FUNNY. I ended up making my birthday a state secret for the rest of college.

 

You don't prank me or surprise me. If you do, game over.

 

My husband took pity on me some years later when a group wanted to give me a surprise baby shower. He warned me quietly the day of so that I was prepared for what I was walking into. That way they saved face, and I didn't have a heart attack and feel betrayed that he knew and didn't tell me.

Edited July 24, 2012 by WTMCassandra

[Catwoman]

Some are harmless and others are not. Making someone afraid to go to sleep doesn't sound harmless. An example of a harmless "prank" I played on an ex boyfriend was that I turned all his Cindy Crawford posters upside down in his room (he had a thing for Cindy Crawford and ten million posters of her). He thought it was funny. Cindy was not damaged in the process.

 

That's not the way Cindy tells it. ;)

 

FWIW, I'm not a fan of pranking because it's a great way for bullies to get away with intimidating other kids, while making it look like they're just joking around.

 

It's different with long-time friends who are just having a good time with each other, and the pranks are silly and good-natured. But if a kid is afraid to go to sleep at night, it's not harmless pranking, it's bullying.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I just woke up to all these comments. Thank you. The adults did step in and put a stop to it once they realized what happened. Ds overall had a very good time at camp. But yes, as others mentioned, he had never met any of these people before so there was no relationship there. And he was a target. He was pranked twice. The first time just because everyone was pranked and the second time because he reacted the first time.

[Catwoman]

I just woke up to all these comments. Thank you. The adults did step in and put a stop to it once they realized what happened. Ds overall had a very good time at camp. But yes, as others mentioned, he had never met any of these people before so there was no relationship there. And he was a target. He was pranked twice. The first time just because everyone was pranked and the second time because he reacted the first time.

 

I'm glad they put a stop to the pranking and that your ds ended up having a good time at camp, but I wish more people would realize that it is not fun to be victimized. So many adults think pranking, and even bullying, are normal aspects of growing up, yet they don't bother to think of how the victims are feeling late at night when they're feeling sad and scared, and are wondering why people are being mean to them when they haven't done anything wrong. :(

[vonfirmath]

I do NOT like pranks or appreciate them.

 

As much as possible I even avoid April Fools' Day, I dislike pranks so much.

[Denisemomof4]

I love to prank and be pranked, but I do not like mean spirited ones.

 

Because of my PTSD of 31 years, I *HATE* when people scare me. My automatic reflex is to scream and punch. i can't STAND it when people think it is fun to scare someone.

[TravelingChris]

My daughter ruled out one college she was considering applying to because in their presentation, they talked about how the different dorms do all sorts of pranks. She isn't a fan of pranks and neither am I.

[justLisa]

If it would scare someone, no way. *I* hate pranks, and there is not a single person who knows me that wouldn't know better. I also hate surprises. But, I know of a few I could play a little joke on and it would be ok. But I do not know how I would come up a prank in the first place.

[Denisemomof4]

I'm talking about fun, silly pranks. Those are the ones I like. Like the time ds put a rubber band around the squirter on the sink and I ended up spraying myself when I turned the water on. Or the time dh was working outside and every time he walked by the garage, I pressed the opener (I had it in my room) and opened the garage door. He stood there all confused, walked inside to close the door, then I opened it, he closed it, I opened it...... The girls and I barely made it through the scenario without splitting a gut open. He fnally just stood outside watching the door go up and down.:lol::lol::lol:

 

Those are the pranks I enjoy.

[Alice]

I agree that it’s only ok if you are very good friends with the person and know they will find it funny or if it’s part of a group thing. It’s wrong if it’s making someone a target.

 

My dh has a friend who pranked us after our marriage. We stupidly (retrospectively) gave him the keys to our condo and asked him to bring the gifts from the wedding reception back to the condo while we stayed in a hotel that first night. He’s a prankster and we should have known. He did all sorts of things: water balloons filled the freezer, popcorn filled the microwave, bed wrapped in Saran Wrap, everything with batteries had them taken out and removed, Jello in the toilet, goldfish in the bathtub, and string wrapped all over everything making a huge web. The best we didn’t find until we got back from our honeymoon and dh went to take a shower. When he turned on the hot water coffee came out of the shower head due to coffee grounds in the shower head.

 

The thing was though that he knew my dh very well (and me very well) and knew we’d find it funny. Years later we got married and all the groomsmen (including my dh) spent weeks trying to plan a prank on him (as he’d pranked them each in turn at their own marriages). He outfoxed us all though and we weren’t able to pull it off.

 

I think that’s the best use of pranks, as part of a group where everyone is ok with it and thinks it’s funny and the pranks aren’t harmful or humiliating. Plus, we were all adults which is very different.

[AndyJoy]

I'll confess to being a major prankster as a teen. My best friend and I would actually spend an entire Saturday before camp plotting, preparing necessary items, and scheduling our pranks.

 

However, we had a code of conduct that we wrote out in our official pranking notebook.

 

1. No destruction of property. (We did break this once by ruining a tube of toothpaste which we replaced)

2. No wet, sticky, etc. messes that aren't easily cleaned up.

3. No shaving cream.

4. No pranks designed to humiliate. Our pranks were intended to surprise and/or annoy.

5. No targeting of "unpopular" kids or those who didn't enjoy it.

6. No pranking sleeping victims.

7. No messing with the victim's underwear (related to humilitation)

8. Take complete responsibility for cleaning up afterwards.

9. No pranking each other!

 

I think there were a few more that I can't recall at the moment.

 

We never would have done things like freezing underwear, making someone pee by putting their hand in warm water, covering them with shaving cream, messing with their hair while they slept, tacking bras to bulletin boards (this happened to my mom at camp), etc.

 

One year at camp we pulled one group prank, but after that we only had one target. She was older than us and the most popular girl in the youth group. She loved the attention she got from the boys and leaders when she railed about our latest scheme. Her reactions were always dramatic and hilarious. She conveniently never locked her room, claiming that she was afraid she'd lose her key and lock herself out.:tongue_smilie: Her best friend who roomed with her even assisted us in a few of them!

 

People who don't like being scared would not like our pranks, but this girl could totally handle it.

 

Our pranks were things like:

 

Strategically place a balloon and tack behind her door so there would be a loud pop when she opened the door.

 

Set 12 alarms for 1 minute apart right at lights out (we took pity on her after 6 and retrieved them immediately.

 

Rigged a rubber bat (the animal) to swing just above her head when the door was opened.

 

Made a dummy out of my clothes and hid it under her desk so it looked like I was hiding under there.

 

Filled her opaque toothbrush case with Nerds candy which burst out everywhere when she opened it.

 

Sneaked into her room before she moved in and placed a rubber rat in a trap under the pedestal sink.

 

Fake cockroaches. Lots of fake cockroaches.

 

And my personal favorite, jalepeno tootpaste (followed by salt-and-vinegar toothpaste when she asked her roommate for hers). With enough ingenuity, you can indeed put the toothpaste back in the tube.:D

Edited July 24, 2012 by AndyJoy

[jewellsmommy]

My knee-jerk, haven't thought much about it is that in general, I think pranks that involve personal humiliation or distress are NOT okay. So things like shaving cream on the hand/tickle the nose, the cold bath you mentioned, drawing things on a sleeping person's face, anything involving a person's underwear or personal care items--those kinds of things would not be okay. Things like short-sheeting a bed, rearranging furniture, forking a yard (no tp, though--too messy), filling a car with balloons, drive-by water balloon attack, etc. don't bother me as much. The question should be whether or not the victim is likely to find it funny as well, or at least not more than mildly exasperating. Is the goal to have fun at someone else's expense and laugh at their humiliation (not okay), or is it to have fun *with* them? Even then, the prankster needs to think about the person being pranked--some people can't handle even jokes/pranks meant in fun.

 

 

I think the problem is that children are kind of known for their lack of discernment. I think they don't put that much thought into it, kwim?

 

I don't mind non-physical pranks amongst an older crowd. My dh and brother have a history of pranking eachother.

 

My brother got into the back of our van one morning waiting for dh to go to work. Then he scared the bat snot out of my poor dh as he backed out of the driveway. The funny part was that my brother had climbed into the van the day before to pull the trick, but waited for hours because he didn't know that dh had taken the day off. :lol:

 

My brother had stayed over the night I ended up going into labor (my water broke at home). When dh tried to get him up and told him to get ready, my brother didn't believe him because of their pranking history. I had to intervene and I was not in the best mood for stubbornness.:glare: