A trend has gone viral on TikTok where parents are pranking their children by cracking eggs on their minors' heads to which experts have weighed in and issued warnings to those moms and dads that it could adversely impact their kid’s health.
On TikTok, parents can be seen cracking raw eggs on their young children's heads before pouring them into the bowl in front of them.
After this, children reacted differently, with some of them hitting the egg on their parents’ heads.
Medical experts said that this prank could have unintended short-term effects on their child’s health, including bruising or spreading germs from the egg.
Dr Meghan Martin, a pediatric emergency medical physician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital said: "I was not a big fan of this at all. This is not something that benefits kids in any way, and I honestly don’t find it entertaining."
Martin also added that parents should be wary of getting raw yolks on children’s faces.
She said: "We're literally smacking salmonella on their foreheads. It’s harder to get a toddler to drink fluids when they’ve got a stomach bug or food poisoning, and so they’re more likely to end up in the hospital for IV fluids."
Amanda Mathers wanted to learn how hard the impact of the egg was after cracking one on her head.
“It was hard to crack that egg on my head and my fully developed skull,” Mathers said who is a pediatric occupational therapist.
"And I almost felt a shock of, like, tears behind my eyes just trying to slam that egg into my head."
However, Rebecca Burger-Caplan, clinical director of child, adolescent and family services at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, said a one-off experience like the egg prank is unlikely to have long-term ramifications.
She noted, though, that "parents may have a choice of whether to help maintain a child's sense that they know what to expect from their parents, versus one where there’s a choice to kind of deviate from that expectation."
Both Martin and Mathers said they are concerned that young children could learn harmful behaviours because of the egg prank.
“These toddler brains are developing and they are like sponges, you know, so they are just taking in everything that’s happening in their environment,” Mathers said.
“And to think that they're witnessing their parents, purposely, you know, harm them … it was really shocking for me to see.”