Is this a normal childhood prank or is this kid unhinged?

[Pointedpotter]

A few weeks ago DH, 2 dc age 7 & 8 & I were round at a friend’s for lunch. Our kids were playing down the hall with their kids, a 9 yo boy and a 7 yo girl, while the adults were in the lounge. My friend, their mum, went to check on them at one point and I heard a gasp and then my friend screaming “why would you do something so horrible, you little shits!” I’ve never, ever heard her talk like this to the kids before and she sounded panicked so we all went running and the 4 of them had put ketchup all over themselves and were lying on the floor posed like they’d been murdered! By the time myself and dh & friend’s partner got there they were all sitting up talking but I will admit it looked like blood and if I was my friend I probably would’ve fallen for it too. It transpired it was the 7 yo daughter of my friend’s idea of a prank and she convinced the rest of them to join in. No idea where she got such a morbid and IMO extremely cruel idea for a prank from at such a young age. She’s always seemed like a very normal 7-year-old. The fact she did this to her own parents and talked my DDs into doing it too has creeped me out a bit though and I’m worried about the influence she might be having on my DDs. Am I overreacting and is this a fairly normal childhood prank in bad taste? Or should I be worried she’s a psychopath in the making?!

Pretty standard kid prank id say. Friend of mine did it as a kid, ketchup on the ground and their head. Then lay down on the concrete and waited for his mum to find him.

My 7 year old does this all the time - he’s very creative with it 😂 We’ve had chopped off fingers (him walking into the front room with tissue and ketchup attached to his hand with a pained expression on his face), ketchup smeared on his forehead and him laying on the kitchen floor covered in ketchup and dramatically holding his chest. I just laugh as it is actually quite hilarious.

My sister used to do this all the time!

Took her ages to realise that when you use so much tomato ketchup, it smells obviously of tomato ketchup.

My sister and I used to do this in front of each other or in front of the cats all the time to see if they’d help!

Its nearly halloween - shes seen it somewhere (you tube?) and there’s blood/guts/scary stuff everywhere you look. I’d totally take it as a normal joke (they always go extra hyper with friends) but would also have been scared like your friend! 😱

I remember doing this as a kid (30? Years ago) at a friends house, I think we were a bit older though.
Tried to prank her mum when she got in from the shops. Frankly we looked ridiculous, the ketchup looked and smelled like ketchup and we’d put newspaper down so it didn’t get on the carpet, something I don’t think cold blooded killers tend to do! Her mum just laughed and stepped over us with the shopping.

They are too young to understand the distress they were going to cause with this. If they are still faking their own gruesome deaths as older teens / adults, then it's time to worry.

When I was a primary aged kid I'd pretend to have drowned in the bath floating on my face holding my breath, I have no clue why, and I'm 99% sure I not a psycho now as an adult 😆

She’s not unhinged. She wouldn’t realise how upsetting it would be. Probably got the idea somewhere else.

If it was Heinz I’d be pissed off because that shits expensive 😂

DB and I used to pull this crap all the time! I remember he lay at the bottom of the stairs covered in ketchup and I threw some books down to make it sound like he fell. Unfortunately we timed it wrong and mum rushed out to find him quickly laying down with ketchup bottle in hand…didn’t quite have the effect we hoped! It all started from a kid in primary school doing it to a teacher and us thinking it was the funniest thing ever!

Youve massively overreacted and been incredibly unpleasant about your friends child. Get over it

Standard Halloween prank. That 7 year old is advanced tether than psychotic.

Sorry but I laughed at that. She's just got a good imagination.

I think I did the same, I’d find it funny

TBH I’d have been livid at the mess!! They’d have got an ear-bashing to remember!

Its halloween so lots of ideas floating around

I wouldn't worry about it, no.

This has been seen and copied - it’s Halloween tomorrow and Halloween stuff has been going on for weeks. She would have had no idea about the horror her mum would have felt looking at it. She isn’t unhinged.

That said, I would say that at least one of those kids ought to have had the thought that they were badly messing up their clothes and the floor - and wasting a shit load of sauce.

So whilst not unhinged or psychopathic, I would say it was naughty.

My brother lay under father’s car once to pretend he had been run over. When our mother went outside and saw him, she fainted!

He got a ticking off but wasn’t called unhinged or anything so dramatic as that!

I would be mad about the ketchup mess!

Not sure how anyone could think it's believable though. Ketchup is nowhere near the same colour or consistency of blood.

Definitely not unhinged, especially this time of year, kids copy and kids like to exercise their creativity.

When I was around 8 or 9 I was staying over with my Nana in her flat which was over two floors. We were both sharing the attic bedroom for warmth reasons.

I was a bit of a story writer and had been jotting things down on paper left downstairs on the lounge table.

My parents let themselves in early to collect me, and apparently I'd written multiple versions of "Please help" "I'm scared" which were probably just parts of some story idea.

My Mum came flying up the stairs in a panic, found we were still in bed, was absolutely furious with me and would not believe I hadn't done it on purpose to scare them. I didn't even have a clue what she was going on about until she showed me. There were quite serious sanctions applied, but I can't remember what now. I do carry the long term resentment and humiliation for being disbelieved and accused of wanting to hurt / frightened them.

Grew up to be a lifestyle Goth and still am, but otherwise am probably fairly well balanced.....

I'm currently sitting watching the neighbours 7 and 10 year olds drawing chalk outlines of themselves as dead bodies (the 10 year old is quite convincing tbh) in the building courtyard because someones put up joke police caution tape...the only reason the 2 year old isn't partaking is because she won't lay still enough....none of them are psychopaths!

I literally remember lying in the middle of my friends kitchen floor, with her, when we were about 6, pretending to be dead! Her parents just casually stepping over us 🙄 as they were used to our shenanigans!
The ketchup would have been a real touch! 🤣👏🏼

After watching Home Alone for the first time, my DS1 and 2 (about 6 and 9 at the time) called me upstairs one night, in the dark, on the pretext of one of them being unwell. As I stepped into the room, flicking the light on, a truck fell from the top of the door, narrowly missing my head. I tripped over a skipping rope tied between the bunk beds and a chest of drawers, and stumbled across the room in shock, treading on pieces of Lego as I went. “It worked!” they cried, and because no damage had been done, I saw the funny side. (A stern warning that future pranks mustn’t be potentially dangerous was enough for it never to be repeated.) That’s kids.