I will never comprehend why terrorizing children is amusing to adults. Kids look to parents to feel safe, secure, loved. The world is harsh enough. Home should be a place of peace and sanctuary. The kid is only nine. His mental capacity is limited, and it could take him months or years before he feels really safe at home again. Childhood experiences, even sometimes minor ones, can stick with a kid. It happens often enough by accident. It's beyond me why the dad would deliberately inflict one on his child. How is that amusing? You scared a vulnerable human who depends on you for safety and security. People may say I'm overreacting, but read up on the neurobiology of childhood development and what traumatic experiences do to that. The dad is a big time AH.

YTA simply because he didn’t mention how his son is feeling. Is the son over it? Is he still upset? OP is annoyed that his wife is upset with him, but maybe that’s because the son is still upset. Plus anybody who enjoys pranking people is automatically an AH

When kids are around that age, they know real from pretend. They may not be easily spooked by monsters under the bed but they will begin to fear things that could happen in real life: from heavy storms to burglary to things they see in the media. And losing loved ones. So coming home in the dark to find scary people in your house instead of dad and sis: very frightening! Dad needs to get some parenting 101

I'm sure they yelled in the jump scare. If kids had pulled the pranks, high voices. A grown man yelling or growling is terror.

Funny Home Videos on TV showed a boy take his pet white mouse outside. He placed the cage on a stand, opened the cage, and was handling his mouse when BAM!!! A hawk swooped in and snatched it right out of his hand. The video camera, on a tripod, caught it all including the shock and horror on that poor boy's face. I'm not sure if the boy got over it, but I haven't because it traumatized me. That was the last TV I ever watched. The video camera on the tripod told me that it was a setup by the parents just to get on TV. They should go to prison for doing that. And the audience laughed. It really hurt.

The poor boy thought these two scary creatures were burglars. It's a miracle he didn't run out of the house or dial 911.

I'm gonna guess the Mum is still pissed off because this is only the latest in a string of dumb things. She's probably totally fed up. This might be the straw that broke the camel's back.

I probably would have just told the sister to do it, but wouldn't have done it myself. Nine is awfully young to do something like that. I did scare my teen daughter and her friends when they had a sleepover - they were in her room and I told them to be careful of monsters or something like that, so they figured I was going to scare them. I put on a s Halloween mask and stood at the door. I heard one of her friends say "Watch me not get scared" and they opened the door... they did get scared. They all shrieked and slammed the door in a fit of laughter. 20 years later and they still talk about it. They were teens, I would never have done it if they were 9 or 10.

My parents used to pull "pranks" on me all the time, especially my dad. Come adulthood, I've learned that this was just another trait of their codependent narcissism and it's one of the reasons I don't talk to them. Parents scaring the shìt outta their kids isn't fukcing funny!

Why worrying about the woman, he should rather take care that his son is okay .. Not mention this part of " being sorry" is kinda red flag.. like a kid that cries about,it didn't meant to make a mess ,but still not help to clean up

If op didn't know how his kid would react then he should have, or at least some idea. Even if not, anyone using a bit of common sense would know that the prank could backfire. And even then, I'd have to ask myself what the motivation was, having a laugh at the expense of a child? It might have not been malicious but after all that, as his wife I would be seriously reconsidering his suitability as a father and it certainly sounds like that's exactly what she's doing. If I were in her shoes and saw this post then my mind would be made up.

YTA . Pranking is infantile and mean. I just don't get why peeps find it funny. It's up there with videos of peeps accidentally hurting/injuring themselves, and their friends/family post them for laughs - much worse when it's kids & animals.

Okayyyy, so this man-child had zero idea his son would react that way. Doesn't sound like he has even taken the time to get to know his own kid.

He’s nine, you d**k. You’re a major league a*****e, and I’d be surprised if he or your wife ever truly forgive you. Go screw.

People don't realize how they harm the child's trust in their parents when they do this stuff. My mom used to pull a lot of pranks on me and then get mad if something went wrong. Like one time she talked me into blowing up a big balloon until it burst. A piece of the latex went down my throat and we ended up in ER to get it removed. Another time we went to the mountains in late winter when the snow was mostly hard mush. She caught me off guard with a hard snowball that split my lip and loosened my tooth. Another trip to the ER. Of course, it was all my fault for ruining everyone's good time. My mom could never understand why I always questioned her motives later in life.

Janelle Collard

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Dad needed to be reamed out for this. He + daughter went overboard: scary masks, dim lights, hiding behind furniture, etc.

I feel like OP isn't telling the whole truth. The wife repeats the words - you should have known better, which implies there's an underlying sensitivity about their son. Worse, if OP and daughter both knew and used it against the son anyway, then that's just f'd up.

I had the "jump out at someone" prank pulled on me more than once as a kid and the perpetrator didn't seem to understand why I always reacted by getting angry and shouting at them.

Some more details from the reddit post: he did apologize to his son and so did the sister, he and the sister comforted the brother immediately, he thought the son would laugh, he said the son "seems over it".

All I needed to read was he pulled a prank.. and YTA, full stop. No compromise, period. F**k that guy.

Dad doubling down makes him the a*****e. Pranks are meant to be funny not traumatise. No apology from dad, or sister, I note.

I don't really think this story is a great example of what I'm about to say, but my personal experience with pranking (observing or being the butt of one) is that the person who comes up with the idea is usually, on some level, a sadist who enjoys other people's discomfort/fear. And the people who go along are too wary of the sadist to protest.

Huh, the one place in the whole world where your son should feel safe, and you f****d that up. Well done.

ESH. Should he have known better? Absolutely. Would I be mad at him if I was his wife? Absolutely. But would I stay mad for days? Probably not. It seems that he realized his misjudgement and he is sorry. I do hope that he apologized to his son and tried to reconnect to him. There is no good in making this an ongoing conflict.

I'm sorry but this is an overreaction. My dad did pranks like that all the time and yes with the mask and all. I think I'd need more information about the son. Like does he have anxiety? Panic attacks? Prone to big emotions? Regardless he needs to apologize and talk to his son during some one on one time to make it up to him. Let him know it was bad judgement on his part and limit those types of activities to his daughter since they have that type of humor.

NAH. Depending on how much care they took to make it scary, the prank itself isn't all that bad. (Tho with the caveat that if he knew his son was sensitive, that would make him TA.) But it sounds like he didn't do much to apologize to/ comfort his child, and of COURSE his wife his mad at him! Especially because it sounds like, instead of accepting his guilt and working on it, he's making excuses and blaming her for being mad at him. I think it was an honest accidental screw-up that WAS a pretty basic, mild prank, but I also think his wife is totally justified in being mad at him, and he needs to take accountability and really connect more with his son.

Oh FFS. Dude messed up and admitted it. There's a lot of self-imagined perfect people casting judgment. The mother is being unreasonable.

He admitted it went bad and too far. It just wasn't the right prank for this kid at this moment. At the same time it sometimes is fun to do scary pranks and I'm saying this as the youngest sister who got pranked monthly by two older brothers. They scared the schnitzel out of me. They'd unexpectedly came to our cabin for instance. I was staying there with friends when we were 12 or something. And in the dark they went around and in the cabin with Halloween masks scaring the c**p out of us. We all laughed and talked about it for ages. Difference being we were all in the mood for scary stuff. And knowing my brothers, I'd seen it coming... For the mum in the story, Yes it went wrong and you were right to blame your husband, he should've known better. BUT if your boy is still scared after days, there are probably underlying issues he needs help for. Maybe something that happened in school that your husband didnt even know about. Talk with your husband and try to forgive him.