I want everyone to watch this video. Philip DeFranco is talking about a YouTube channel called DaddyOFive, ran by a man blogging about his family’s everyday life and regularly uploading “prank” videos. This man and his wife prank each other and their children, who are also made to prank each other for more material they put into monetized videos.
As you will see in this video, the way they treat their children (especially Cody, who I assume to be 7-9 years old) is outright horrid and abusive, though. Cody seems to be the only one of the children who gets visibly upset over his parents’ “pranks” fairly frequently, begging them to leave him alone and quit messing with him and yelling at them to stop.
In the first clip that’s shown in DeFranco’s video, the parents pour invisible ink all over the floor and blame Cody for it, filming his reaction. He is shown yelling and crying, nearly panicking and insisting that he has nothing to do with it, but they don’t stop. Instead, they keep yelling and cursing at him at the top of their lungs, only to tell him and his brother that it’s “just a prank” once they stopped crying.
Another clip shows the mother filming Cody and yelling at him for not being able to “take a joke”, manipulating him and putting all the blame on him instead of apologizing. They constantly follow him around with their camera, not giving him any personal space and filming as many of his reactions as possible to humiliate him in front of thousands of viewers.
But it gets worse than that. A different clip shows the father pushing Cody face first into a bookshelf. He is then shown crying on his bed, with a bleeding nose, next to a blood-stained pillow. His father then claimed that it was “red ink” and that he simply had a scrape underneath his nose.
On top of that, the man who runs this channel uploaded a video titled “BLOCKING ALL THE HATERS”, ranting about the people complaining about their videos and pointing out how horribly they treat their kids in front of his children, even making sure they listen to every word he says.
In DeFranco’s video, it becomes obvious that they constantly manipulate, emotionally abuse and physically abuse their children, egging them on and keeping them under control by making them say things like: “At least you don’t hit us like most parents!”
I encourage everyone to watch this video to get a better idea of the situation. If you can, that is.
Social services have been called on this family before, but no consequences have followed
I legit feel ill watching the short clips of the kids, but I still believe it should be broadcasted what pieces of garbage these parents are.
Fuck them. Fuck them and their greedy fucking souls.
Please please PLEASE do not watch the video if you are triggerd by any of the warnings. I personally am not, but even I found it incredibly hard and distrubing to watch.
I felt the same way. I will never understand how parents can treat and manipulate their children this way and never feel remorse.
Here’s an addition that shows just how much they terrorize them.
They pretend to destroy their children’s possessions and laugh at their reactions. That alone is enough to leave deep scars on anyone’s mental health, especially a child’s.
DeFranco mentioned that these people tend to terrorize Cody the most, but looking through their list of videos, I couldn’t believe just how many videos are about Cody.
They obviously enjoy humiliating their kids, but to me, it seems like they’re intentionally abusing Cody the most for not playing along as much as they wish he did. I also feel like this is just another tactic to keep their children under control and have them play along. An indirect way of saying “Don’t be as whiny and difficult as Cody, or else we’ll treat you the same way.”
When Cody yelled at them and said “You made me go through all this just for a stupid prank?!”, it broke my heart. These people don’t have a single shred of love or empathy for their children.
Another addition:
Apparently, they uploaded a video in which they made Cody think he was going to be put up for adoption, filming his reaction. As you can imagine, Cody was horrified, begging them to let him stay.
Supporters of his parents have used his reaction to try and prove that their kids are happy, claiming that Cody wouldn’t have fought so hard to stay if he was unhappy with his family. Of course, Mike Martin (the father) reblogged the tweets defending him.
These people publicly abuse and humiliate their children in exchange for money. That’s not an assumption, it’s a proven fact. It doesn’t matter whether the children are aware of the abuse or not, or how they feel about their parents’ “pranks”.
Of course the thought of being taken away from your home and the family you’ve known for your whole life would terrify a child as young as Cody. Their parents have manipulated them into thinking that they’re lucky to live with them and pressured them to play along with their “pranks” for several years. They’ve made their children think that this kind of life is normal and that they have nothing to complain about. They don’t know any better. A child’s horrified reaction to the thought of being placed into a completely unfamiliar home consisting of strangers they think they’ll be forced to live with for the rest of their life is not proof that a child is not being abused.
In fact, most children who live in abusive homes love their parents dearly and can’t imagine living without them because they are so emotionally dependent on them.
Ignoring that is incredibly dangerous.
Please share this. A lot of social media attention has helped before so why not help these children?
Yeah no these aren’t pranks that’s just assholes wanting money
I couldn’t watch past the first clip, this is just disgusting.
How the fuck can people be this cruel!? Those poor kids!
If a child is overwhelmed, remove them from the overwhelming situation.
If a child is hungry or tired, address those needs.
If they are throwing a tantrum in the department store, take them somewhere quiet and let them cry until they are calm. They’re probably just bored or cramped or overwhelmed and need a minute.
Address the cause of misbehavior, not how it manifests.
Make sure things like transitions, when you are leaving or moving on, are clearly communicated. Sudden transitions can be a huge trigger for tantrums. Best to try and mitigate with proper advance notice.
Explain your reasons to children when you are enforcing rules
Listen to children when they explain their objections to rules. You don’t have to agree with them all the time, but you should listen.
Understand that you, the adult, can also be overwhelmed, tired, hungry, and frustrated too. Acknowledge, to your kids, out loud, how these things are impacting you and apologize if you snap at them unfairly. Again, this is modeling emotional response.
Make the rules clear, simple, and consistent. Don’t change what the rules are based on your mood that day, or if you must, explain it before hand. If you normally let them play video games in the car, but you can’t today because your head hurts and your driving to a new place and you need to concentrate so you don’t want the sound to distract you- explain that to your kids. If they counter with “I have head phones. Is that ok?” Then, yeah. It’s ok.
If you need to have consequences for their actions, then actually follow through. Don’t threaten with consequences that you won’t really do. That makes it a lie, and makes it super ineffective in the future.
Make consequences fit the behavior. Explain why that is the consequence.
Some good consequences might include: cleaning up a mess they made, taking a cool down time for a few minutes, not getting to a special treat like a trip to the movie theater with their friends, etc. Remember, we are trying to avoid physical pain as a form of punishment.
Speak to children respectfully and prompt them to speak respectfully back.
Choices. Give kids a reasonable, manageable number of choices. Do you want to wear the green shirt or the blue shirt? Do you want Cheerios or waffles? Carrots or green beans? Do you want to give grandma a hug or a high five? Older kids can handle more choices than younger ones.
General rule of thumb: You aren’t trying to raise an obedient child. You’re trying to raise a thoughtful, respectful adult. And you have to be a role model, not just in what you say, but also in what you do.
Spank your kids before they wind up like the rest of these entitled tumblr brats
“The more children are spanked, the more likely they are to defy their parents and to experience increased anti-social behavior, aggression, mental health problems and cognitive difficulties, according to a new meta-analysis of 50 years of research on spanking by experts at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan.”
So they provide sources saying spanking does not work but lets spank them anyway?
So instead of teaching them facts that would stop them becoming deluded “tumblr brats” hit them instead?? Do the opposite of what works? What?
As a parent, it definitely works. Because around me my kid thinks twice before acting out. With her mom (who’s tried everything but) she doesn’t. I was spanked as a kid when I deserved it too and I don’t exhibit any of those behaviors, nor do any of the people I know who were disciplined in that manner growing up.
Spanking kids works. I’m living proof. My youngest brother has grown up with less discipline like I had, and he is much less respectful, more disobedient and lazy. The only reason why my Dad was able to get him to do shit and my mum can’t is because she poses no threat to him. She can’t physically intimidate him like dad can. Kids need that. They need to know they can’t get away with everything and that actions have consequences. If I did something really wrong, I would get the belt from dad. And he wouldn’t just belt the shit out of me, he’d give 1 or 2 quick whacks on the backside. He would tell you exactly why he hit you. Stung like fucking hell but I’m not traumatised or whatever. All it does is make you think twice before doing/ saying something stupid.
‘don’t spank your kids’ bitch, please. i’m also proof that spanking works. shit! when i got in trouble at school, i wasn’t afraid of the teachers or the staff. no, i was scared of my mother because i knew she was going to kick my ass when i got home. that fear still remains with me today, even as an adult! i know if i broke the law, i wouldn’t be scared of the cops. i’d be scared of mom!
So 50 years of meta analysis, covering over 160,000 children vs “bitch please” anecdotes.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Okay people who justify spanking children, explain how my brother ended up a mostly privileged asshole with anger issues and depression, who literally trusted our parents so little he lied about having a boyfriend several years older then him until his school found out, who actively collects very dangerous weapons, and to this day will actively try to hurt me as punishment for saying anything remotely critical about him, when out of the two of us he was ‘spanked’ far more then I ever was? Literally the more he was spanked the more disobedient and distrustful and violent he became - I’ve even asked his reasoning on this, and his response is “I’m not going to be respected either way so I might as well just do what I like”.
What the hell makes you think spanking is a good and acceptable thing to do to children?! Neither me nor my brother to this day trust our parents because of their methods of dealing with us, whether that was spanking or gas lighting or emotional abuse. I’m still unpacking the years of manipulation by members of my family.
news flash: spanking a child is child abuse. thank you and good night.
okay so because i literally have to EXPLAIN why hitting your child is wrong, here we go:
it causes pain to the child
it teaches the child that those who love you will hurt you if it’s for ‘your own good’, normalizing abusive that could later end up in being in an abusive relationship, and even in some cases abusing others.
teaching your child to fear you is not teaching them right from wrong.
there are countless other ways to reprimand your child without harming them.
it is emotionally damaging as well as physically damaging.
the kid can grow to fear adults and authority figures in general.
the mindset that violence is okay
you are HURTING your child.
im so tired of people trying to defend their abuse by saying they are doing it with ‘best interest’ or that it’s ‘discipline’
i dont understand why people still try to justify physically injuring your child for, like, any reason at all
My mom used to whoop me on the ass, not very often because i was a pretty well-behaved kid. I just remember thinking “why are you hurting me????” and feeling really broken hearted and sad. I was always closer to my dad and I honestly think that’s why.
(She’s also open-handed slapped me a few times and tried to strangle me once so there’s that too.)
I used to try to be all hard like “I WAS SPANKED AND I TURNED OUT FINE” but that was always a lie. Being spanked (and screamed at and other things) really damaged my relationship with my mom and made me legit afraid of her sometimes.
