They Got Catfished By Their Parents In An Attempt To Teach Internet Safety
When TikToker Shay (@shaythethey) was in elementary school, they had an iPod Touch and downloaded a messaging app.
The app would provide a phone number to use. Shay had had this app for a while and would change the number every few weeks.
On May 5, Shay’s parents went out to dinner, leaving Shay and their siblings home alone. After they left, Shay received a message on the iPod Touch.
It was from a number they didn’t recognize. Shay immediately asked their sister who it was. The number was not in her contacts either.
She told Shay to respond, so they could figure out who it was. The person started fear-mongering Shay, telling them they knew where they lived.
They even named the school that Shay and her siblings attended. As a kid who was no older than seven or eight, this was really scary to them.
Shay’s sister told Shay what to say and then instructed them to stop responding. Shay put away her iPod Touch, and they never spoke about it again.
A few weeks later, Shay and their siblings were on the way to go bowling with their aunt when they somehow got onto the topic of texting unknown numbers with their parents.
Shay’s sister brought up the incident that occurred on May 5. Their mom asked what she was talking about.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
She explained the whole situation, and later, their parents revealed that they were texting Shay the entire time. They were trying to scare Shay and their siblings on purpose and admitted to catfishing them.
Shay always thought this was super weird because they changed their number frequently, which meant their parents must’ve snuck onto the device to get the number off the app. It was also strange to imagine two adults going out to dinner, sitting in a car to catfish their own children.
For weeks afterward, Shay was scared that someone would show up at their house or school and harm them or their siblings. There are definitely better ways to teach your children about internet safety.
In the comments section, several TikTok users echoed Shay’s experience. It seems like a lot of kids in the early days of the internet were subjected to scare tactics in the name of internet safety.
“When MySpace was popular, I was in 5th grade. This happened to me and a lot of my friends, where our parents or a family member would catfish us and try to get us to share info, then punish us for it,” shared one user.
“I mean, they definitely have a right to look through your iPod, especially as a 7/8 or 9-year-old. However, this is not the way to teach you about online safety. I mean, I guess the lesson could come straight from the source (a stranger), but it wasn’t that necessary,” commented another.
“My little cousin did this to my brother. My cousin was 9, and my brother was 7. My brother was so scared,” added a third.
More About:Human Interest
